Mistakes We Learned Growing Up
by EvanescingSky
Summary: A childhood rocked by World War II left Francis and Arthur each reeling in their own way. Years later, they are still struggling to move forward and form a future in post-war Europe. But as they fight to put childhood demons aside, new problems continue to arise, and they are no closer to knowing what their futures hold. (Sequel to What About the Children?)
1. A Fork in the Road

AN:

Heyyyyy folks welcome back! This is the sequel to _What About the Children?_ but you don't really have to have read that one to read this. A warning for those that did read the prequel though: This one's going to deal with heavier themes than the last story. I won't say the last one was light, but this is a more adult story that will deal with (as the tags mention), both internal and external homophobia typical of the time, themes of depression and general struggles of a young person trying to figure life out. If that's not your cup of tea, you have been forewarned! And now-on with the show.

* * *

When Arthur J. Kirkland was 20 years old, he decided to go to Paris. Why he chose Paris was unfathomable to the friends and family he informed of this abrupt decision, but to him, it seemed the only suitable place to work through the shadowy malaise gripping his brain.

He had reached an age where he was meant to know what he wanted to do with his life, and in absence of that, be prepared to follow in his father's footsteps. Two of his older siblings were married already, and Daffyd had been working the same job for three years now. Arthur had quit his position in the same brewery two weeks ago, in preparation for his trip. If it would be there when he got back, he didn't know.

The thing was, Arthur had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, and although he had been of a young age when the war ended, he felt as mired in its bog as his father, with his missing half a leg, and the others who had fought in it. Every conversation still seemed to swing back around to the war, as if it hadn't been six years since its end. Six years! Every time he thought of it, he was shocked anew. It had now been longer since the end of the war than it had lasted, at least for Britain. Everyone was still picking up the worse-for-wear bits of their lives and trying to reconstruct them into something manageable, Arthur no less.

But the wretched business of it was that he couldn't put a name to the foot-dragging unease in his heart. He hated that—it was a feeling he couldn't even understand, let alone explain. His father had sat him down for a talk after he quit his job, and he had utterly failed to give an accurate explanation of why he had done it.

"I know you're young," Mr. Kirkland had grunted, seated at the table with his knees a few miles apart, balancing himself with a beefy forearm on the table. "But you won't be forever, son. You need to think about your future."

"I am thinking about my future," Arthur said. He was thinking it was a big, blank void right now, and he had no idea how to fill it.

"You're going to have to work," Dad said. "Mum n' I can't support you forever."

"I know." Mr. Kirkland had heaved a sigh and reached for the pint on the table to take a drink. Arthur's sat uncharacteristically full in front of him.

"Why'd you do it then? The bewery's a good job, you n' Daffyd can go in together…" He paused, giving Arthur the chance to leap in with an explanation, but none was forthcoming. So he went on. "I hope you're not setting yourself up for disappointment is all, Art."

Arthur had never liked that nickname, but Dad wasn't available for criticism from his neophyte son.

"What do you mean?" Arthur asked, his jaw stiffening, an edge in his tone. Dad also wasn't available for "tones" taken by his children, but Arthur's control over his temper had not benefited in the slightest from his aging.

"I don't know what's going on in that head of yours," Dad said. "I never have. I know you're a hard worker, but…there's only so much can be in your future. You're not going to become a wealthy man, Art. And it's no good to turn your nose up at a job like the brewery. It's good, honest work."

"Just because I've made one choice you don't agree with doesn't mean my whole life is about to go down the shitter," Arthur replied, reaching out to grip his pint.

"Don't take that tone with me," Dad warned. "You're a man now, it's time you started behaving like one. Your mum isn't going to coddle you and find your temper tantrums charming for the rest of your life."

"I just need to go, dad," he said, squeezing the handle of the mug. He _wanted_ to explain why he was doing it, but now dad had riled him all up and he was forgetting that he had intended to offer explanation. "It's…I feel…it's just necessary. I need to…figure some things out."

Dad grunted and looked unimpressed, like Arthur was some muddled protagonist of a Romantic novel, beset by hysterical unrest with no root cause. Dad didn't think much of novels. Arthur's face colored, and he took a long drink.

"Well you best figure it out quick," Mr. Kirkland said at length. "Paris ain't cheap."

Arthur was not a man (or a boy, depending on the attitude of the adult speaking to him) of hasty, uninformed decisions. Thus he decided it must be a mark of his upset that he arrived in Paris with only the vaguest notion of where he was going. He had been told (by Englishmen) that Montmartre would be his best chance at a cheap hotel, but he had none in mind as he carted his valise through the cobbled avenues. It was a relatively small bag, dark brown with a big, forest green patch on one side, and withered leather handles. He hadn't packed very much.

The other thing he hadn't considered was that he spoke no French (excepting basics like "Where's the toilet?" and "My name is…" and "Fuck your mother"). His education had been somewhat piecemeal, having been evacuated to Scotland near the start of the war, and then later to America, only to return to England shortly before his final years of school.

The French were not interested in expanding Arthur's knowledge.

No one bothered to give him directions to anything once they realized he didn't speak French, and his arms were becoming weary of carrying the bag everywhere. He stopped at a café to have a cup of tea and a rest, which he at least managed, but he came across another problem—his money supply. First of all, he had to change some of his pounds to francs. Secondly, he didn't have very much of either. Growing more irritated with himself by the minute, he slapped down the money for a cup of black tea anyway, and glared at the passers-by while stirring a teaspoon and a half of sugar into his tea.

Then, lo—an angel. Okay, not quite. The sound of English. English being spoken by someone who had a grasp on the sound of an H (eg. Someone who was not French). Arthur turned, and saw a young man chatting up a pair of girls, who Arthur couldn't have said understood a word the man was saying. Deciding this was his only chance to get some directions, Arthur girded his loins and butted into the conversation.

"Are you from North Carolina?" he asked, recognizing the accent only because of the time he had spent living with an American family there. Alfred had talked so much Arthur didn't think he'd forget that accent for the rest of his life.

The man's brow lifted in surprise. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"I've been there," Arthur said dismissively. "Do you live here?"

"Now I do," he said, flashing an easy grin and leaning back in his seat. "They threw such a party at the end of the war I decided never to go home. Besides, you'll never find prettier ladies than in Paris!" The dark-skinned woman to his left showed a cheeky smile and helped herself to a macaron from their plate.

"Right." Arthur could not have cared less. "Do you know how to get to Montmartre from here?"

"It's a bit of a walk, but yeah," the man said. "Looking for something in particular?"

"No. Just need to get there." The American blinked, and Arthur sensed the man found him rude, but he was too impatient to care. The directions were rambling and Arthur frantically tried to memorize the details that sounded important, but he was only ten minutes out from the café when he realized he had no more luck of finding Montmartre now than he did before talking to the man.

"I could get a cab," he acknowledged, seating himself on a bench by the Seine. But he didn't know how much it would cost, so he wouldn't know how many pounds to change, and he was loathe to waste some of his allowance just getting to the right neighborhood. "I can find it," he insisted, getting up.

It was late afternoon, and the growing shadows made it increasingly difficult to see the map he had purchased at a more expensive hotel he had no intention of staying at. He bought himself a crepe from a street vendor, thinking the day might seem less god-awful with some food in him. It helped somewhat, but what he really wanted was a place to sit in peace. When he was passing by the Tuileries gardens again, he decided he might as well go sit in the park. _Hopefully I don't get mugged,_ he thought irascibly.

After giving his feet fifteen minutes' rest and figuring out that nothing short of a good night's sleep would cure their ache, he left the park and resigned himself to catching a cab. If he waited much longer they would stop running, and he would be condemned to spending the whole night on the street. Early evening was descending over the city as he crossed the Seine for what felt like the fiftieth time that day. A few people were lingering around the stone walls of the bridge, and a man turned in Arthur's direction as he walked. Something about the intensity of his look slowed Arthur's step, and he felt there was something happening he ought to understand.

The man stared, and Arthur's step weakened further, hoping the fellow would look away or leave before Arthur had to pass him. Instead, the blond hurried forward and Arthur resisted the temptation to turn around and walk away.

"Are you lost?" he asked, his eyes like murky springs of unknown depth, fixed unwaveringly on Arthur's face. It was unnerving and he almost said no, merci, he was fine.

"A bit," he said hesitatingly. "Do I…" No, he didn't know this strange Frenchman. How could he? He'd never been to France.

"You might," the man replied. "You were sent away during the war, weren't you? As a child?" Arthur stiffened and all at once, the situation was clear, and he was staggered.

" _Francis?"_

"It is you! Arthur!" While Francis embraced his limp body, Arthur tried to reconcile the waifish boy he had known at Robinson House with the broad-shouldered man in front of him, sporting a carefully trimmed beard. Last time he'd seen Francis, he could've easily donned a dress and passed for a _girl._ "What are you doing in Paris?" he asked, pulling back, moving his hands to grip Arthur's shoulders. "Have you been walking long? It's been so long!"

"I. Er. Your English. It's better." Questions. Francis was asking him questions. But he was still trying to get over running into his old playmate, and Francis was asking so many at once.

"I spent the rest of the war at Robinson House," Francis said with a shrug. "I learned."

"Oh. Was it…" Before Arthur even finished the question, he knew it was going to be a stupid one, whatever adjective he chose to put at the end.

"I never heard how America was." Francis touched his elbow and guided him over to one of the half-moon benches built into the bridge, and Arthur's knees were grateful for the seat. They began to fire questions back and forth like a naval battle, but Francis managed to ply much more information from Arthur than vis-versa. Francis insisted nothing interesting happened at Robinson House, although he said he was grateful for Daffyd's support after Arthur's departure.

"What did your mum say? When you came home?" Francis asked.

"She cried, of course," Arthur said. "Bawled. Right in the airport. And she was beside herself that none of my clothes were going to fit anymore. What about yours?" Francis' face darkened like the sky above them, and he looked away. Somehow, Arthur felt the perpetual specter of sorrow in Francis' eyes had not changed at all since their youth.

"She came to meet me at the train station," he began quietly. "When she first looked at me, I don't think she recognized me. But she looked again, and just stared, and didn't say anything. I was afraid she was disappointed, or that I'd done something, or not known something. Then she said 'I sent you away to keep you safe from the war. But now that I look at your face, I can see I spared you nothing.' Then she cried. Just a little though. Maman doesn't think much of crying, she says it doesn't solve anything."

Arthur remembered how sweetly Francis had spoken of his mother at Robinson House, and he felt something was being left out of the story, some underlying reason for the shade over his eyes. He also remembered Francis' father.

"And um…and your…your dad? Did you ever…?" It seemed rude not to ask, but Arthur was afraid to dredge up something Francis didn't want to talk about. No proper Brit ever raised an uncomfortable conversation topic.

Francis closed his eyes briefly, and Arthur wondered if he might just pitch himself into the river. _Idiot!_ He chastised himself. _Asking about his father! What a ninny you are!_

"He died," Francis said softly, shrugging his left shoulder. "Probably not long after he was captured." He could've been dead already—probably had been— when Francis had asked one of the ladies at Robinson House what happened to the Germans' prisoners of war. Arthur remembered how Francis' chest had heaved like a trapped bird hearing all the speculation from the boys around them, and how his hands had shook on his paper after the discussion was silenced. "You know I…after the war, I read everything I could about what had happened to them…all the newspapers, the books, the radio programs…it was just…some form of self-torture, I guess, but I wanted to know…like I could take some of his pain, their suffering, on myself by making myself hear about it all."

Arthur regretted the conversation topic more than ever. He couldn't have been so emotionally forthright and honest with a man who was—frankly—nearly a stranger if he wanted to. He supposed it was possible Francis still considered him a friend, but even then…he couldn't imagine telling Francis how horrifying the death of Alfred's father had been, or how he had come to Paris because he felt so lost and directionless, and afraid his life would pass him by before he figured out what he wanted from it. People just didn't _say_ those things.

"It didn't work," Francis added, a note of bitterness in his voice that Arthur had never heard before. In the silence that followed, Arthur studied Francis' face—the crescent shadow beneath his eyes, the withdrawn tilt of his head, the way he allowed his hair to partially cover his face (Arthur remembered he wore it back in a ponytail as a boy). It seemed Francis was no happier now than he had been as a war exile. Perhaps he labored under some curse, and was doomed to be forever melancholy. Arthur would have accused him of melodrama, but he knew Francis' melodrama—it was something he shoved in one's face, and this was not that—this simply _was,_ which gave it a ring of truth his drama never had.

"Why are _you_ in Paris?" he asked suddenly. "I thought you lived in the north."

"I do. I did." Francis confused himself for a moment. "I moved here."

"Why?"

"I'm looking for something," Francis replied.

"What?"

"I don't know."

Arthur opened his mouth to say that was stupid, and what sort of fool moved his whole life on a whim like that, when he remembered his conversation with his father and decided he wasn't in a position to throw stones. Not with his suitcase still sitting beside him on the ground.

"I hope you find it," he said instead, surprising himself with the sincerity of his tone.

"Me too," Francis said. They were quiet once more, and then Francis got to his feet. His legs were longer, Arthur noted. Proportionally. He thought of his own awkward teenage phases (which had progressed, quite honestly, into an awkward adult phase), and his mind echoed the curiosities of his thirteen-year-old self, wondering if Francis had ever had an awkward phase in his life. "Do you want to walk and stretch?" Francis asked at the same time Arthur said, almost accusingly, "When did you get so tall?"

"I'm hardly taller than you, Arthur," he said. He still couldn't say Arthur's name right, and for some reason this pleased the Englishman. He too, got to his feet.

"You… _feel_ taller," he said, feeling his cheeks glow at the stupidity of his remark.

"It's my dancer legs," Francis sighed emphatically, with an exquisitely pained look, forever troubled by his own beauty. Arthur could've slapped him. "Oh don't look so angry," he said, which Arthur supposed he did. A little smile played on Francis' face. "I waited a long time to grow into these."

"You?" Arthur scoffed. "You've never had an awkward phase in your life, don't give me that."

"It's true," Francis lamented. "You should have seen me as a teenager, I looked like a stork."

"I don't want to hear it from you," Arthur warned. It was no good to hear Francis' pitiful attempts to sound relatable when Arthur was a literal goblin, all pointy bits and harsh lines. He couldn't fathom Francis ever being insecure about anything—what would be the _cause_?

"Then tell me about home," Francis said, taking Arthur's arm and making him jump. Continentals were so _handsy_. He had heard it all over back home, but it was different to see. Even with his closest friends (admittedly not that close) back home he never would've done this. "How are your brothers? Your sister? Your sweetheart?"

"I think you're just trying to annoy me," Arthur said, looking annoyed.

"What? I'm asking about your life, I want to know," Francis said, taken aback.

"'Your sweetheart'," Arthur mimicked in a high-pitched voice. "Don't make an idiot of yourself, Francis. At least not more than you can help."

"I take it that means you don't have one," Francis surmised. Another look was the only response. "I didn't mean to scratch an open wound," he cooed, leading Arthur off down the bridge. Arthur fought the desire to pinch him somewhere soft.

"It's not a _wound,_ you unutterable wretch. And my family is fine. All home from the war, and busy with other things," he said.

"That's good to hear."

"Where are we going?" Arthur asked. Again, Francis appeared surprised.

"Oh, I don't know. Just walking. Why? Do you have somewhere to be?"

"Just—you—" He looked down at their linked arms. "I thought you were taking us somewhere." Francis looked too, and then up at Arthur, and Arthur had the sudden sensation they were far too close, on the Continent or not. But Francis didn't let go and Arthur didn't pull away, and it was growing dark anyway, so they continued on.

"Are any of them married yet?" Francis asked, guiding the conversation back to something acceptable.

"Mairead and Iain are," he said. "Iain's moved up north, he's in Scotland now."

"Does he like it?"

"I don't know, I guess. He hasn't come back."

"Has anyone ever told you you're a terrible conversationalist?" Francis asked.

"Has anyone ever told you—" Arthur looked over at him and tried to think of or at least decide on an insult. "…shut up."

Francis let out a burst of laughter and his grip on Arthur's arm tightened. "Yes, as a matter of fact, they have," he said, smiling. "Many times."

"I don't doubt it," Arthur grumbled.

They wandered along the bank of the river and Francis kept up a flow of conversation, but not in a way that seemed like babbling. He continued to press Arthur to engage, so he couldn't just tune out. But sometimes they were quiet, and that didn't seem to bother the Frenchman—sometimes, in fact, it seemed like a more natural state of being for him. Arthur found himself constantly confused between what was Francis and what was the weight in his spirit pressing him down.

He also didn't care at all for when Francis met his gaze too long—there were too many things in Francis' eyes that he couldn't understand or discern, and it unsettled him.

Francis led them down the steps onto the lower bank, where the water lapped at the stone inches from their feet. Shady characters lingered along the edges, and couples pressed into shadows, and a few drunks lying about or singing _La Marseillaise_ , or something like it. Arthur swore he heard the word 'guillotine' at least once.

"I think the war has left an eternal mark on all of us," Francis was murmuring, purposefully, Arthur felt, keeping his voice low, so that Arthur had to lean in to hear. They had come around again to the war, as usual. Sometimes Arthur played a game with himself—how innocuous a conversation could come around to the war? And how long would it take? He'd once listened to a few folks in a dried goods shop begin by talking about the price of raisins and end with the Blitz over the span of less than ten minutes. "Whether or not we fought, it is a part of us. It will always be a part of us."

"I don't think so," Arthur disagreed. "We'll move past it. Time heals all wounds and whatnot."

"Time heals nothing," Francis said. "Time only dulls the pain with forgetfulness. Amnesia is an opium." A narrow boat drifted by them, with a couple young people lighting candles on the roof of it, no doubt off to have a good time doing whatever young people did in a mythical land like Paris.

"That's morbid," Arthur told him.

"It's not morbid, it's true," Francis said. He sighed and his eyelids drooped, and he tilted his head, almost as if he meant to lean it against Arthur's shoulder, but all he got was the brush of hair.

"You're young," Arthur said. Only the elderly were allowed to share such scandalously depressing thoughts. Or even _have_ them.

"So are you," Francis responded before Arthur could continue. "Younger than me."

"I remember." He remembered how much older Francis had seemed at Robinson House! How mature a twelve-year-old had been! And how he had tried, likely too hard, to maintain Francis' attention. _What a stupid kid,_ he thought.

"Have you forgotten the pains of your childhood?" Francis asked, stopping beneath a bridge. It smelled like it hadn't been dry since the French Revolution.

"A lot of them," Arthur said. "Most of them."

"I don't mean the ones like losing a toy," Francis said. "Like being sent away from home. Like being separated from your family."

"It was for my own good."

"But have you forgotten how it felt?"

"It doesn't bother me anymore."

"Because you're with them again. Only that could soothe your pain."

 _He died. Probably not long after he was captured._

"Why are you in Paris?" Arthur asked.

"It doesn't matter," Francis said.

"What do you m—"

"You know what I mean. It doesn't matter, it's not important. If I wasn't in Paris, I wouldn't have found you again," he said.

"I'm not what you're looking for," Arthur said.

"You might be," Francis said. Arthur noticed then, that they were close in a way that put a pain in his chest, a pain that felt so vaguely familiar, like a memory passed down from someone else before him. It was on the tip of his tongue, but if he had tried for the rest of the night he couldn't have named it. He also had the premonitory sense he should know what was happening, that in another situation, he _would_ know, or even that he had been through this before. "When I saw you," he said softly, "I was so _sure_ it was you. Even though you're so grown-up now. I thought, if I was wrong, the whole day would be worthless. Maybe I would leave Paris."

"You sound like someone out of a novel. Don't be so hysterical," Arthur said, wondering if there was any truth in Francis' words. "To be honest, I never stopped thinking of you as twelve. So I didn't think to look for you."

"That explains why you looked so shocked," Francis said, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. "Did you think I would stay in your memory forever?"

"Yes." Arthur had resigned himself to the end of their friendship by the time he returned to Britain, seeing no reason why they would ever cross paths again. It just another tumult of the war, a violent, untamed tide that pushed them together and just as quickly ripped them apart.

"Maybe this is all a dream," Francis said. "And I am."

 _If it is a dream, then it is a good dream._

"It seems unlikely," Arthur said.

"Oh?"

"You're an adult," Arthur explained. "I could never dream that. It's not in my memory." Then he wondered what he was doing having such a pointless conversation. And when had Francis become so existentialist?

"Perhaps it's mine then," Francis said. "I always wondered what you grew up to look like."

"It's not a dream," Arthur said.

"I know how to figure it out," Francis said.

"Think like a rational human being?" Arthur suggested, lacking the antagonizing, caustic tone he imagined.

Francis half-smiled, looking amused, and then they were closer, and closer, and closer…

It was dark, and when they were so close, Arthur could barely see, but he could hear the shuffle of their feet on the wet stone, and the sound of their breathing. All of Paris receded away from them and their one foot-by-one foot patch on the bank of the Seine, and the terrible, taboo closeness of them. It wasn't Continental, when Francis' lips touched his. It just _was._ And it was as if someone had shone a light onto all the parts of Arthur's understanding of the world that he had chosen to forget, and explained all the things he had brushed off, saying he didn't care, because he didn't understand. His throat was tight, and he went rigid beneath the touch, and maybe that was why Francis pulled away, looking so sad, with that little smile, like the sound of the violin songs Arthur had heard passing by certain dining venues.

"It must be r—" He didn't finish before Arthur had grabbed him, too hard, too tight, and kissed him back. He saw Francis wince at the roughness of his touch, but he squeezed his eyes shut when he kissed back, and that touch was halting and hesitant and unsure of itself. They both moved in a similar jerky, uncertain way, dipping their toes into waters unspeakably forbidden.

When they separated again, they were both panting lightly, even though they had barely kissed. Arthur could see Francis' shoulders trembling, and he realized he was shaking as well.

"Are you hungry?" Francis asked softly.

"Um. Yes. Starving, actually," Arthur blurted out, having eaten nothing the whole day besides the crepe. The thoughts in his head were moving too fast to even bother trying to pick them apart. Francis was…? Somehow it wasn't shocking, but on the surface, the visceral taboo-ness of it remained. It forbade him even asking, but the question burned at the tip of his tongue. He refused to consider what it meant for himself. He refused to dredge up any memories of his childhood and re-examine them. Maybe this was all a dream, and he would wake back in London, and take his father's advice to skip Paris and go beg for his job back.

But if it was a dream, he may as well get something to eat, because he was hungry.

Francis pulled out of his space, with some reluctance, and began to lead them back up to the street. He did not take Arthur's arm, or touch him at all, or even walk closer than Arthur might've to a friend at home. At last, very lowly, as he led them down a quieter street, he said, "I'm sorry. If that was too much. I didn't mean to scare you." He looked over at Arthur from the corners of his eyes, and Arthur saw genuine regret there.

"No—I wasn't—. It's just. No. It's fine. I. Don't worry about it." It wasn't fine, and he wasn't scared only because he was blocking out all the thoughts he knew were waiting to sink their teeth into his heels and drag him under the black tar of fear and realization, but never, never, never could he have told Francis he regretted it, and made him believe it. He couldn't even make himself believe it. His mind began to formulate "what-ifs" and he immediately shut it down. "Where are we going?"

"There's a café I know," Francis said, as if there weren't a hundred cafes he knew. "We can get you something to eat and drink there."

"I don't have many francs," Arthur sighed.

"I can pay," Francis said, waving a hand. "Let me give you a treat. It looks like you've had a rough day."

"Is it that obvious?" Francis tried a little smile and didn't reply. It was decidedly nighttime when they reached the café and got a table. Francis got coffee, and Arthur a decaffeinated tea, and they both had sandwiches—something Francis called a "Croque Monsieur", if Arthur heard him right. He realized with a jolt it was the first time he had ever heard Francis speak his native tongue. His voice sounded different than when he spoke English. Arthur thought he would like to hear it more, to compare the two.

"What are you looking at?" Francis asked when he was done placing their order.

"I've never heard you speak French before," Arthur said. Francis blinked a few times, and realized Arthur was right.

"Oh. Well." He shrugged. "It's just like other people speaking French." Arthur shook his head in disagreement, but stopped himself from saying anything regrettable. "Arthur…do you have a place to stay?" Francis asked after a less-than-comfortable pause as the settled in with their drinks. Arthur ratcheted up the awkwardness by not responding.

"There's a hotel…in Montmartre…"

"Montmartre?" Francis asked in a tone that immediately put Arthur on the defensive. "Is that where you were trying to go? That's across the city from where I found you!"

"I got lost!" he snapped. "Some stupid American gave me some horrible directions!"

"You got directions for a place in Paris from an American." Francis deadpanned.

"He lives here! And none of the damned French would talk to me because I don't speak French!"

"You don't speak French," Francis said, tapping one index finger with another. "You have no francs." He tapped his middle finger. "You don't have a place to stay." Ring finger. "And you don't even know why you're here. This is some trip you've planned."

"I have some francs!" Arthur bristled. "I changed them at the bank earlier!"

"You should've gotten them in London before you left," Francis chided. "It's less expensive."

"Well thanks for the tip," Arthur said, liberally laying on the sarcasm. "I'll be sure and go back to London to change my pounds before tomorrow."

"I'm just saying this seems a little haphazard."

"Stop being a judgmental ass and go get our sandwiches," Arthur said, waving a hand at the counter where they had been placed moments ago. He wasn't used to being the object of judgement like this—he wasn't a reckless, exciting sort who did things that got him in trouble. Hence why everyone was shocked to hear he'd suddenly quit his job and was running off to Paris for an indeterminate amount of time. "I didn't come to Paris for lectures, I can get those at home."

"Maybe you'll actually listen to mine." Francis got up, though, and fetched their food. Arthur nearly choked on the first bite. "Is it bad?" Francis asked. "I didn't notice anyone new behind the counter…"

"What the fuck is this bread?" Arthur asked.

"What?" He seemed to leave Francis perpetually bewildered. "It's just bread. Normal bread."

"No. This can't be normal French bread."

"Why not?"

"This is the fucking best bread I've ever tasted," he said. Francis blinked again, and then laughed, and he sounded so _French,_ and it was wonderful. "You use this on…" He peeled it open. " _A ham and cheese sandwich?"_

"It's baked," Francis pointed out mildly, as if this radically altered the situation. "Oh Arthur, you poor English thing," Francis said, shaking his head. "You're used to that pig swill they call food over there. Actually, I take it back. I'd never feed a pig the bread I ate in Britain. It would spoil the meat. And it would be cruel."

"Shut up," Arthur said, his mouth full of food. "'m tryn eat." Even without the heaven-blessed bread, he was sure this would feel like one of the best things he'd ever eaten—like the first time he'd had cake with the full allotment of sugar after the war.

Francis just gave a little titter and stirred his coffee and ate in a civilized way. Everything he did was poised and made Arthur question whether it was natural or purposeful. Even the way he tilted his head when they were quiet, and the way he rested his hand on the table after finishing his sandwich.

"So you have nowhere to go." Appropriately, they resumed the topic of Arthur's resting place for the night. Francis seemed to be approaching an enormous question. "If you wanted," he said, in a tone easier to reject or ignore, "you could stay with me. I have a couch." It was vitally important that in the same breath he made the offer, he gave Arthur space. They both felt the importance of this, although Arthur alone knew it was unnecessary. He put the remains of his sandwich down.

"I couldn't. I have money, I just need to get somewhere I can spend it," he said.

"You could save the money," Francis said. "With your trip-planning skills, you're going to need some back-up." There was another pause as Arthur tried to find a way to accept the offer.

"Just for a few nights," he promised. "Tonight. Tomorrow I'll find a hotel."

"No you won't," Francis said. "You're staying in my city and I haven't seen you in ten years, you're staying with me." He rethought the events of the night, and then added, in a lower voice, "Unless you'd prefer a hotel, and then it will be just tonight."

Feeling discombobulated, Arthur tried desperately to take stock of the situation. Maybe this was his chance to walk away, to kindly thank Francis for the meal and apologize that he couldn't, he had somewhere to be. And never speak to him again, or tell anyone that they had met. Better to leave Francis out of the story altogether. Just come home and say Paris hadn't worked out, he'd go find a new job and stay put in Britain.

"I just don't want to put you out," he said. Francis relaxed, slightly.

"You're not," Francis reassured him. "The company would be—I would be happy to give you a place to stay while you visit Paris." There was a flighty, fledgling hopefulness in Francis' hands and posture as he offered, a diffident excitement that Arthur tried sincerely to understand. He began to feel that Francis was an ocean, and he had as much chance of comprehending those depths as he did of the one that lapped at the shores of his homeland. To say the least, it was frustrating.

Relief overtook everything else momentarily, as he registered that he wasn't going to be sleeping on a bench or in an alleyway tonight. A couch, a roof over his head, maybe a blanket—maybe God was on his side after all. Or at least not opposed to his being in Paris.

"Capital. I'll stay the night with you then. Just like old times, right?" He tried to brush off the fact that he was accepting because he had nowhere else to go.

"Hopefully with less crying," Francis remarked.

"You were the one doing most of that," Arthur said, and regretted it at once. Francis gave him a withering look and finished the rest of his coffee. Arthur wondered if there was a doctor around that specialized in removing one's foot from one's mouth, if it had an unfortunate habit of being there.

Francis paid their bill and took them at no rushed pace up to his apartment, a door down from the café and upstairs. Arthur followed close behind, itching to get his valise off his abused fingers for a decent length of time. The hall was dark, and off in the distance, he could hear the sound of someone really going at an accordion. It took Francis a moment to get the key in the door, but he did, and swung the door open, and Arthur stepped into a whole other life.


	2. Faites Comme les Parisiens

"Bienvenu chez-moi."

Arthur was impressed Francis managed to open the door at all. Into the miniscule living area, he had indeed crammed a couch, directly across from a thin-legged table, accompanied by two chairs of different designs. One had to edge around the corner of one chair to get into the kitchen, which had no door, but an archway on either side. There were odd drawings on the walls, and colorful clothes draped here and there, along with a few candles.

"It's very…what's the word…Bohemian," Arthur said as he stepped in.

"Thank you," Francis replied, shutting the door behind him. Arthur could hear him shuffling around, taking off his coat and scarf, as Arthur took in the amount of stuff stacked into the room. Two old coffee cups were on the table, and a plate of crumbs. Several newspapers were forming the base of a tower on one side of the couch, and it looked like he had been drawing something on one of them. The flowery, pink-red curtains over the window by the table did not look like something that had been made to be a curtain. It was wholly eclectic and even chaotic, but as with all things, Francis seemed to make it artful and meaningful. It fit, even in its bizarre existence. But clearly cleaning was not his forte. Arthur eyed a dust bunny by the leg of the couch, and wondered if he might offer some cleaning as repayment for his stay, or if that would be insulting.

"Are you still hungry?" Francis asked. When Arthur turned, Francis was not behind him, but had slipped into the kitchen through the archway across from the bedroom, which shared a wall with the front door. Between that and the kitchen was the tiniest of bathrooms, overflowing with enough to make it look like a back-alley alchemist's lab. Arthur had to drag himself from his horrified attempts to peer into it to answer the question.

"No, I'm fine," he said, noticing a croissant and a half in the open breadbox.

"Take a croissant." Francis put one on a plate and pushed it towards Arthur.

"No really, I'm fine," Arthur insisted.

"If you say so." Francis took out a jar of jam and set it on the counter by the croissant. "I'll just leave it here. It's left over from breakfast."

"Is this all yours?" Arthur asked, ignoring the croissant. "You don't have a roommate or anything?"

"Not here," Francis said. "If I lived closer to the city center I would have to have one. This one's pricey enough as it is." He ran a hand back through his hair, scraping thick blond locks away from his face with a furrowed brow. "But I have one for a little while now." He smiled simply at Arthur, with a lack of pretense that was refreshing, and endearing.

"Until I find a hotel," Arthur reminded him, already feeling the discomfort of invading someone else's home.

"Oui, oui, until you find a hotel," Francis said dismissively, waving a hand. His faith in Arthur's hotel-locating abilities (or intentions) was dim.

"So…what do you do here in Paris?" Arthur asked, realizing he had never asked. They had needed to fill in so much time apart they had barely scratched the surface of where their lives were now. And Francis was strangely cagey about personal information, which one would never guess from his gregarious front. Arthur was only just picking up on it.

"I work at a bakery," he said, a little smile creeping out. "I made the croissants yesterday." He gestured to the one on the plate.

"You made this?" Arthur asked, taking a second look.

"Yes. It's old though, I would've had it with coffee tomorrow…I can make you one to go with it, if you'd like. It will soften it up a bit."

"No, no…but if you made it, I'll try it."

"It's not fresh," Francis reminded him. "It's not my best. Actually, give it back, you can't have that one."

"Why not?" Arthur asked, already reaching for it.

"Because it's not good."

"Don't be a priss, let me try it."

"Give it back," Francis insisted. Arthur hesitated a moment, locked into the habit of obeying his host, and made a snap judgement about whom he was with before grabbing the croissant off the plate and taking a huge bite out of it. "Arthur! Spit it out!"

"'m no g was'e fd," Arthur said sanctimoniously, trying to chew the massive piece of croissant.

"You're an animal," Francis said. "I don't want to hear your opinion on it, it's no good and I won't take responsibility for it."

"It's good," Arthur said, when croissant wasn't bursting out of his mouth.

"It's terrible," Francis said.

"You were fine with a second ago," Arthur said.

"That was before it was the only representation you had of my baking skill."

"Show me something else tomorrow then." Arthur took another bite of the croissant.

"Will you be here tomorrow, when I'm back from work?" Francis asked, slightly too curious to be casual.

"Well. I might be out. Sightseeing, or something," Arthur said. He hadn't really planned activities for Paris, but he knew there were a number of interesting historical sites.

"But will you stay the night?" he asked. Arthur wanted to brush it off again, but he knew the question was more than its surface, and to be dismissive would be to dismiss Francis' underlying meaning, which he was reluctant to do.

"…I suppose I will," he said, looking at the plate and taking an uncomfortable bite of croissant. Francis' hand curled on the counter, and Arthur thought of it resting on his arm, and although there was a foot between them, he suddenly felt too close again. He struggled to swallow his food.

"Good," Francis said, clearly lost in some other thought. "Do you want me to take your coat?" he asked, dredging himself up from beneath the waves and stepping closer to Arthur, offering a hand.

"Oh. Yes." Voice muffled by an inopportune bite of croissant, Arthur put the pastry down and shrugged out of his coat. Their hands touched as Francis took it, and he pulled away too slowly to be unintentional.

"I'll just hang it with mine." Francis left the kitchen and Arthur started breathing again. It occurred to him as Francis hung up his coat, that he would have no way back into the apartment once Francis had left for the day, assuming there was one key and Francis locked the door (having walked around the neighborhood a lot, Arthur sincerely hoped he did).

"Francis, how—" He turned to call to him, only to find he had been passing right behind him, and they nearly collided. "Oh, sorry, I was just—"

"Sorry," Francis apologized as well.

"I was just wondering…" Arthur's voice was softer, and neither of them stepped back. "Um."

"You do that a lot," Francis observed in the same quiet, light tone.

"I don't. Not usually."

"It's just me?"

"It's…been a strange day," Arthur tried to defend himself, without much heart.

"A bad day?" Francis asked.

"No, just…strange." Francis' eyes looked darker than they had been as a child, but still framed with the same thick blond lashes. Had that somehow passed his notice before? Francis' eyelashes? His cheekbones were far more noticeable now, that was certain. He knew he hadn't noticed those, because the round-cheeked boy hadn't had any visible cheekbones to notice.

"It has been," Francis agreed. Arthur barely heard him over the sound of his own heartbeat, and his focus on not thinking the thoughts he was thinking. Was it of his own volition, that his hand touched Francis' cheek, his knuckles just brushing over the skin, feeling the warmth? Or was it the surging heat in his core, the roaring blood in his ears, that did it? There was a wild force driving him and the primal rush of it terrified him. His brain screamed at him to stop whatever he was doing.

Francis reached up and took hold of Arthur's hand, he thought, to move it away. But instead, he turned Arthur's hand over and touched his lips gently to the center of Arthur's palm. He lifted his gaze to Arthur's, and this time when he leaned in, Arthur did too, and they met halfway. This time, the hesitation was gone, and Francis' hands brushed over Arthur's shoulders as his arms slowly wound around Arthur's neck. Seeking somewhere, anywhere to put his own hands, Arthur eventually settled on Francis' hips, which felt thrillingly forbidden, and audaciously intimate.

Somehow, then, they were in each other's arms, and when they broke the kiss, Arthur was breathless.

"Is this okay?" Francis' question was just a whisper, and Arthur thought he felt him shiver. He was spending too long trying to think of an answer, so he just kissed Francis again to buy more time.

"I need…" Driveling excuses rushed through his brain, and that was the only thing to ooze out. Arthur would've preferred his mouth to just shut up.

"I know." He wasn't sure if Francis knew or not, but he was kissing him in a way that made Arthur feel sure he'd never been kissed at all before this moment, so he didn't bother trying to find out. His hands moved to cup Arthur's cheeks, and Arthur's excitement pressed against him as they pushed closer still.

This time when they separated for air, Francis' eyes were as dark as ever, and hooded in a way that sent a powerful shudder of anticipation through Arthur. His fingers dug into Francis' hips as he struggled to form words. Francis' gaze shifted sideways, looking at the partially ajar door to his bedroom.

"Do you want to sleep on the couch?" he murmured, his hands dropping to Arthur's chest. Arthur's predictable silence answered enough, and the way his grip tightened to a bruising degree on Francis. "Then come to bed." He smoothed down Arthur's lapels, and freed his tie from his shirt to tug on it. Francis had a leash on him, and in a fevered trance, Arthur followed.

They shut the door, and Francis showed Arthur things he had never known he needed.

Morning dawned on Arthur feeling strangely hungover, despite a distinct lack of alcohol. Lethargy was present though, and a fogginess of mind that left him wondering what, exactly, had become of his impromptu trip to Paris. He was warm, and a comforting sense of safety lingered over him, so he was less panicked than he might've been. Rubbing the crust from his eyes, he opened them to look around, and was confronted with a naked back. He jumped a little, then his eyes traced a line from Francis' shoulder along his side and down his leg, partially exposed from the covers.

Oh.

Yes.

That.

The thought of what it meant pulsed just behind Arthur's consciousness, but with great skill and force he shoved it back. Childishly, he thought he didn't want any drastic realizations about who he was to ruin whatever experience he was having here with Francis.

Given what had happened…it wasn't untoward to touch him now, was it? Shifting slightly closer on the bed, Arthur reached out a tentative hand, and swept his fingertips over Francis' warm shoulder. A pleasant fluttering sensation rushed through his gut and into his chest.

It was unlike anything he'd felt before.

 _Francis_ was unlike anything he'd felt before.

He could think of a few lads back home that he'd felt…particularly inclined towards, but it had never gone far enough (anywhere) for him to feel this way. It had always seemed to him he was just very eager to be friends with them. Briefly, he also considered Mr. Jones, and his dorky, adolescent gawking at their first meeting.

Tracing his hand down Francis' upper arm, he began to follow the lines of his companion's muscles and bones, letting his fingers skip over Francis' ribs and crest the ridge of his hip bone, slowing to a stop along the dip in the muscles of his thigh.

"Are you having fun?" Francis murmured.

Arthur jerked back so hard he almost fell off the bed. Francis rolled onto his back and gave Arthur a sleepy smile.

"Don't stop on my account…I was enjoying it." When Arthur didn't relax to a sufficient degree, Francis flicked out the covers and smoothed them down, trying to put him at ease again.

"I've just never…" Never touched anyone the way he had been, a moment ago, with that level of sensuality or intimacy. Never allowed himself to consider that he _wanted_ to. Desire in that way had always been something so strictly off the table for Arthur that it hadn't even existed in his consciousness. Clearly, Francis did not think the same way. Arthur let out an impatient huff, annoyed with his slowness.

"You're allowed to look and touch," Francis said, stretching out. "As a matter of fact, I encourage it…" A lazy smile slunk across his face, and he crooked his arms behind his head for a moment. Arthur raked his eyes over the display and observed:

"You've gotten a lot hairier." Francis looked neither offended nor amused.

"You haven't." A smirk quirked the corner of his mouth, and Arthur slugged him in the ribs.

"At least I couldn't be laid out as a rug!" Rather than returning an insult or taking umbrage, Francis laughed a little.

"It didn't seem to bother you a minute ago."

"Touching doesn't mean enjoying," Arthur sniffed.

"Mhm." Francis just gave him a look, and didn't bother pointing out the obvious about the night before. "Well feel free to continue." Arthur glanced over Francis again, but the hold of the moment seemed gone now that they were both awake. Slowly, as if testing Arthur's allowance, Francis reached out and put a hand against his ribs, moving it up his chest. He leaned in, with plenty of warning time, and placed a light kiss on Arthur's lips. "See?" he murmured. "Touching is nice."

"Mhm…" They kissed again, and Arthur's hand came more naturally to Francis' side. This state of affairs lasted a few minutes, and then Francis pulled away.

"I should get you something to eat before I have work," he said, throwing the covers off and giving Arthur an ample view of his back side as he got out of bed. "Usually I just eat there. You could walk with, if you wanted," he suggested, looking back at Arthur. "If you think you'll be able to find your way back here."

"Well I couldn't get in even if I could," Arthur pointed out. "Not if you lock the door when you leave." He finally remembered what he had been about to ask Francis the night before when that snowball had finally avalanched.

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that." Francis pursed his lips. "I could leave you with the key…" He seemed to recall several instances of Arthur losing sweaters, shoes, and mittens when they were children, but perhaps he was better with things now.

"Don't worry about it. I'll go sightsee," Arthur said. "Er—what time do you get off work though? So I know when to bother coming 'round?"

"Usually around 7," Francis said. "Once I'm done cleaning everything. It depends on how busy we were. You can meet me back there too, if you prefer."

"We'll figure something out," Arthur agreed. Feeling there was no one to blame for this situation but himself, and that he could hardly force Francis out of his daily routine to accommodate Arthur's slapdash plans, he resigned himself to spending the day out among people. Maybe he could find a place to post a card back home, so they'd know he was at least still breathing.

Francis' morning routine left Arthur with no questions about why he had cut himself off from Arthur when he had—it took him at least an hour to put together an outfit, coif his hair and make sure he looked _parfait._ The more Arthur watched, the more entertaining it became, though he had to admit the end result was…spectacular.

"Have you always been…" While Francis tested a few scarves, Arthur sought for a proper way to ask his questions.

"Like this?" Francis supplied, looking over at Arthur, tucked safely under the covers.

"…so inclined?"

"Yes. As long as I can remember," Francis said. "But I could tell it was…distasteful, to others. Even as a child."

"You're Catholic, right?"

"Yes. So you can imagine."

"I imagine it's much the same as with our church," Arthur said. "But when we were kids—you talked about girls. Sometimes."

"Of course," Francis said, unbuttoning, examining, and rebuttoning his shirt. "I love girls." There was a pregnant, befuddled pause from Arthur, and Francis turned with a slightly impish smile and said, "I like both, Arthur. They're both good."

"Both? Can you do that?" Arthur's brows met in the center above his nose.

"I suppose you must be able to, because I do."

"Why aren't you married then?" Arthur demanded. "That sounds so much simpler!"

"I haven't met the right person yet." God, he was going to say something about true love next, Arthur just knew it. "I won't marry but for love." There it was.

"That's completely impractical," Arthur told him, pouncing on the chance.

"My life is impractical," Francis replied. "My soul is impractical."

"I can see that first one," Arthur said. "Even though that makes no sense."

"I am not made for this world," he sighed, setting the scarves aside and looking at Arthur. "I can feel it in my heart. No, this is wrong for me. But I will make do, because I must."

"God, shut up." Arthur grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, half-hearted for their recently renewed friendship. Ten-year-old Arthur wouldn't have hesitated to really bean him. "Stop trying to sound like some tortured novel protagonist."

"But I am, in my own novel," Francis said, winking in an even more obnoxious manner. "Now get dressed so we can go! I'm going to be late."

"You're going to be late because you took a bloody fucking hour to get dressed!" Shortly after delivery, he wondered how much cursing he could get away with around Francis.

"No, I'm going to be late because you spent that hour lying in bed naked instead of putting your clothes back on," Francis responded primly.

"Well you keep coming back in!" Arthur protested, feeling the tips of his ears grow hot.

"…and you don't want me to see you naked?" As with all of Arthur's thoughts, it seemed to sound even more ridiculous when Francis said it. The long pause he left after voicing Arthur's (Arthur's thought, dammit, not Francis'!) thought increased the silliness of it to untenable degrees.

"Just because of last night doesn't mean you can see me naked whenever!" Arthur snapped, ears burning. "Give me five minutes and we can go!" Moreover, there was a lot more light in the room now than there had been last night. And Arthur was thinking a lot more—or rather, his thoughts were _clearer._ At least, they felt that way. He thought he saw Francis roll his eyes, but he did leave, and didn't try to sneak back in, which Arthur had considered he might.

Francis seemed perkier than the day before as they moved at a brisk pace down the street. Arthur couldn't tell if it was because Francis was a morning person, or if their…intimacy, had restored some good mood to him. Regardless of the reason, it was pleasant, and Francis pointed things out to him along the way: shops that were intriguing, things Arthur might want to go look at later, places to catch a trolley, and the occasional historical marker.

"Oh, and you must tell me what you like for dinner," Francis said. "I don't cook much while I'm working, but I'll put something together for us."

"Really, don't trouble yourself," Arthur assured him. "I can buy something or we can just have whatever you normally have."

"I don't mind," Francis said.

"It's really not—"

"Arthur, please," Francis said, touching his arm. "I _want_ to."

"Oh. Um. Okay then. Er—chicken's nice. And I always love a good Shepherd's pie."

"Hm. I'll see what I can do." He seemed at once disappointed and disdainful. How French.

They said goodbye at the entrance to the bakery, which was closed now. Arthur stared hard at the sign in an effort to permanently (or at least for the rest of the day) imprint its image in his brain, just in case. Francis gave him bisous (and never, under pain of anything, would Arthur admit he had thought Francis was going to kiss him for a moment) and told him to be back at the apartment after seven-thirty. Then he let himself into the bakery and disappeared behind the counter.

"Time to go sightseeing," Arthur sighed.

There was meaning in Arthur suddenly being thrust back into his life. Francis believed that unshakably. How else could it have happened that they just stumbled upon each other, brought back together by the same tides that had torn them apart a decade earlier? Both still reeling from the events of their childhood, both desperately seeking a way forward. It wasn't chance, it was too orchestrated to be chance.

If it was chance, it was just as likely Arthur would be swept away again.

As he kneaded the bread for the late morning loaves (Emma was always there earlier, and thus prepared their first products of the day), he considered what it might mean, to rediscover Arthur at this tumultuous time in his life. He wondered what Arthur's purpose here was. If he had to guess, he would say Arthur was as turned around by life's currents as he was, but that seemed impossible. Arthur had seemed self-directed and determined on his path, whatever that might be. How might it be possible that he was lost as well?

"You're looking thoughtful this morning," Emma remarked. Francis startled a little, not having noticed her lean against the counter beside him.

"Not at all," he said.

"You're a heartbeat away from over-kneading that dough," she said. "What's on your mind?"

"…so I am." He stopped, and began forming the bread loaves instead. Taking his time to respond, he eventually replied with another question. "Emma, do you believe in fate?"

Emma jerked her head in surprise, and blinked.

"I supposed I never really thought about it," she said. "It's not really important, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Whether something is fate or not. It is. Does it matter if it was ordained, or simply chance?" she asked. "And anyway, you didn't answer my question."

"That would take all day," he said.

"Simplify it, Francis." He looked up at the ceiling, milling the words around in his head.

"I'm trying to figure out what my future will be," he said at last.

"Heady questions," Emma observed, pulling herself off the counter. "Just make sure your future doesn't involve Mme. LeBlanc yelling at us for subpar goods." Francis flashed a little smile.

"Me? In trouble? Never." He reached out and tapped her nose, leaving a smear of dough on the tip. "Never fear, my little Belgian, I have everything under control."

"Yeah, alright," she said a bit sarcastically, wiping her nose off. "Will you do the macarons today, or shall I?"

"I can, if you cover the rest of the pain aux chocolates," he answered.

"Plan." Emma turned on her heel, blonde curls bouncing, and strode off to begin her next batch.

Business slowed between the afternoon lunch rush, and the evening customers on their way home from their own jobs. Leaning against the counter, observing the two customers perusing the baguettes on display, Francis thought about what he was going to do that evening. There was something to make for dinner, of course. He'd stop by the market on the way back. Maybe get a couple sausages, some peas, carrots…another bottle of wine. Did he need more cigarettes? One hand dipped down into the pocket of his apron to feel the carton, and he tried to remember if he had another back home. Probably not—best buy another. And then—and then he would go up the stairs, with his groceries, and maybe Arthur would be waiting there by the door. His cheeks warmed pleasantly at the thought, and he considered they might exchange a chaste kiss, as he imagined married couples did. Probably not, but in his daydream, Arthur was happy to oblige. Smiling absently at the counter, he tapped a rhythm with one finger.

One of the customers approached with her purchases, and Francis rang her up, humming a little tune to himself. It was more likely he would arrive first, since Arthur had no reason to hang around waiting for him. Maybe he would have time to make dinner first, and have it ready when Arthur came back. Then they could have a coffee and a cigarette on the couch, and then they could kiss, and kiss, and maybe Arthur would put his head on Francis' shoulder, and they could just sit.

When they closed up shop, and finished the last of their cleaning and prep for the next day, Francis could feel the feet of his heart tapping out an excited rhythm against his ribcage. There was nothing to be excited about, but nonetheless—the feeling persisted. He had to force himself to be thoughtful about his grocery purchases, and actually think about what he was going to make. Only mildly successful, he drifted through the market in a haze, and arrived home with only the vaguest idea of what they would be eating, but a very vivid theoretical schedule for the evening.

Fishing around in his pocket with a soft sigh as he approached the door, he rounded the corner of the hall to see Arthur sitting on the floor by the door. Surprised out of his rosy daydreams about a bakery of his own back home, and Arthur's continued presence in his life, he slowed his step.

"I hope you haven't been waiting long," he said. Arthur shrugged.

"My feet are tired. I wanted to sit down," he said.

"You've been here a while, haven't you?" Arthur climbed stiffly to his feet as Francis came over to unlock the door.

"It's fine."

"Did you get lost again?" Francis asked, letting them in.

"No. I stayed around the apartment."

"Oh Arthur, there's so much more to see!" Francis lamented, going straight to the kitchen to drop off his things. Arthur heaved a sigh as he pulled off his coat and shoes.

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, I'll start dinner in an hour or so and we'll have something to eat. That will make you feel better," he said.

"An hour?" Arthur echoed in surprise. "Isn't it after eight?"

"Yes," Francis said. "Oh yes—you eat so early in Britain. It's normal." He waved a hand and fished his old pack of cigarettes out to light one up. "If you're terribly hungry now, I have some more leftovers from the bakery."

"I'll wait," Arthur insisted, stubbornly refusing to even consider putting Francis out of his usual schedule. With a careless shrug, Francis cast off his coat and scarf, tossing them over the back of a chair, and lit up his cigarette. Far be it from him to insist on Arthur's comfort. He took a seat on the couch, tucking one foot under his leg, and waved Arthur over.

"Come sit with me, tell me what you did today," he said. Looking nothing more than suspicious, Arthur approached slowly, and sat on the couch like a puppet. "Do you smoke?" he asked.

"A bit," Arthur said. Francis took a draw and offered him the cigarette. He watched Arthur's gaze slide over to the kitchen archway, where the rest of the packet of cigs sat on the counter. Then he took the proffered one, and took a quick drag. He paused, moving to hand it back, then jerked his hand back to his face and had another pull.

When Francis got it back, he didn't immediately inquire after Arthur again, but allowed them to sit in silence a few minutes, passing the cigarette back and forth. Arthur relaxed a little, laying an arm on the back of the couch.

"Francis, what is this?" he asked.

"What's what?" Francis asked patiently.

"What we're doing."

"Would you ask the question again?" Francis breathed deep of the cigarette.

"What are we doing?" Arthur asked.

"Thank you. We're enjoying ourselves," Francis replied.

"This is not a _hobby,_ " Arthur said, snapping his gaze over to Francis.

"No, it's not," the Frenchman replied seriously, meeting Arthur's gaze. "But we are. Don't we deserve to be happy, Arthur? Haven't we had enough upset and uncertainty in our lives?" Arthur shook his head insistently.

"This isn't…sustainable."

"Do you enjoy summer any less knowing it will end in a few months' time?" Francis asked.

"Summer comes every year," Arthur returned.

"And love comes many times in a lifetime," Francis said placidly, hogging the cigarette.

"Who said anything about love?" Arthur demanded.

"No one. But if we're talking about relationships, it's a factor. I'm not saying I love you," he clarified, to dispel the edginess in Arthur's gaze. "Only that if you expect every relationship to be permanent, you'll be continually disappointed."

"So you're saying this is just a waste of time." Arthur's tone was flat. Francis' eyebrows arched.

"On the contrary. I'm saying we should enjoy it while it lasts, and when it's over, think fondly of it." He held the cigarette out to Arthur. "Don't overthink it, dear," he said softly. "Just let it be."

"That's easy for you to say," Arthur murmured, half-accusingly, half-serious. He took the cigarette and had a draw. "You've been doing this a lot longer." Francis let out a humorless laugh.

"Of course." He paused. "What makes you say so?" He didn't recall ever having mentioned past encounters or experiences to Arthur.

"I can tell," he said dryly, raising his eyes to Francis' face. Francis shrugged one shoulder—that was fair. He did tend to exude a confidence that came with experience. In the silence that followed, Francis shifted closed to Arthur on the couch, but Arthur was fixated on one knee, and was keeping the cigarette to himself. "You said you always knew," he said, so quietly Francis had to ask him to repeat himself. "How?"

"It was just…a feeling," he said, shrugging again. "I just knew." He didn't know how to describe it, because he didn't remember ever having the "aha!" moment that some people seemed to have—it was just a truth about himself he had always known, as much as he had always known his hair was blond and he liked the color blue.

"Ah." Arthur handed him back the cigarette, and there was next to nothing left, so Francis sucked the last dregs out of it and rose to his feet.

"I'll go put together dinner," he said. As he sliced and diced in the kitchen, thinking over their conversation, he considered the truths about himself, and his life thus far, and what he ought to share with Arthur, and what wasn't necessary for him to know. He came out on the side that most of it was unnecessary for Arthur to know, but would be safe tucked away in his mind for frequent contemplation about society, and his place in it.

Did one _have_ a place, when one's own heart was a cause for ostracizing?

Instead of supplying an answer, he set the table and called Arthur to come eat.

Arthur regarded the meal as he took a seat, appearing still deeply uncomfortable from their earlier discussion, and said, "Oh. You didn't have to make something this nice."

Looking over the dinner, which he had cobbled together out of random ingredients, Francis replied, "It's pretty simple, actually."

"Oh."

Francis could blame himself for effectively killing the conversation, being too lost in his own thoughts to supply any, so they ate to the tune of forks clinking on plates and the periodic sound of Francis refilling his wine glass. At length, he got up and turned on the radio, so there was at least some sort of background noise.

"What do you listen to? At home?" It also, he realized as he sat back down, setting a small cheese wheel beside the bread loaf on the table, provided a springboard for innocuous conversation.

"News, mostly," Arthur said. "And uh…there's a couple folk stations that are nice."

"Jazz?"

"Never," Arthur scoffed, watching Francis cut himself another piece of bread and pair it with a slice of cheese. He waved a hand for Arthur to help himself, and Arthur cut off a tiny sliver of cheese to nibble on.

"It's my favorite," Francis said.

"Of course it is." Choosing to step over whatever had just been implied, Francis rose to his feet in a fluid movement, uncrossing his legs and offering his hand to Arthur.

"Come here, I love this song." Abandoning his cheese rinds, Arthur accepted the hand, and allowed Francis to pull him into a wholly made-up dance to the swinging tune. "It's pretty, don't you think?" He smiled and lifted Arthur's hand so he could twirl himself.

"I suppose it has a certain charm…" Arthur said slowly, hesitantly moving a little closer before they spread out across the kitchen, to pull back together on the next beat. Francis began to hum lightly along with the tune, and one song bled into the next.

"Jazz has soul," Francis told him importantly. "It's the best thing we ever imported from America."

"Mhm." The tone of Arthur's mumbled reply suggested he wasn't listening at all.

"I'm glad you came to Paris," Francis said. "It's been nice seeing you again." He had certainly rushed in, bringing some excitement to Francis' life, which he wasn't going to protest.

"Me too," Arthur conceded softly, his fingers moving in some indecisive gesture on Francis' back.

"Do you want to go to bed?" he asked, when Arthur said nothing else. He wouldn't blame the other man for being tired: he'd had a bit of a tumultuous time of it the past two days.

"No. No…let's listen to one more song," he responded quietly.

So they did.


	3. Skirmishes on the Western Front

When Arthur had spent a week in Paris, Francis had become used to his presence in the house. Arthur's insistence on Francis always having his way in his home had begun to give way to his usual tendency to argue and push for what _he_ wanted. Francis found it amusing to watch, although he rarely conceded to Arthur's half-concealed protests about what they were eating for dinner.

They rolled so easily into the second week that Arthur realized it was Sunday again, and he hadn't even begun to think about how he was getting home, or when he was going to do it. Certainly, he thought uneasily, he had begun to impose on Francis by coming so abruptly and now staying half a month. But the Frenchman never brought up Arthur's departure, or politely hinted it might be time for him to consider leaving. Perhaps he was too polite for that, though. Or maybe the French thought it uncouth, Arthur didn't know. He couldn't tell what was rude and what wasn't here.

As with most things that weighed on Arthur's mind, but didn't seem wholly cordial conversation, it tossed back and forth against the walls of his mind like a loose dinghy, until he blurted it out at a most inopportune time. That being, with Francis half on top of him on the couch, kissing his mouth and his jaw and his neck and it seemed, anywhere else he could reach. Their cigarette lay abandoned in the ashtray, and through the haze of desire melting the emulsifiers of his brain again, Arthur's mind decided _yes, now_ was the time to mention—

"I should be going soon!" His voice squeaked and if he hadn't been red before, he could feel it now searing the tips of his ears—and he had always hated that, the way he blushed so dark, all over his face and down his neck and up to his ears. It was impossible to ignore, and infuriating to experience.

"Go?" Francis blinked at him in a daze, uncomprehending.

"Er—yes. I mean. I've been here a while, haven't I? It just…I do have to get back to Britain sometime."

"And you're thinking of that…now." Francis pulled back

"Well I just—!" Arthur defended himself. "I've been thinking about it and I hardly think it's right for me to just burst in here and then stay as long as I please."

"Have I made you think you're unwelcome?" Francis asked suddenly. Arthur jerked in surprise.

"No, why would you—?"

"Because you're bringing this up out of nowhere, it makes me wonder if I did something," he said.

"Not everything is about you." As soon as the words were out of Arthur's mouth—no, before, when they were still coming out—he wondered what on God's green earth was wrong with him. He couldn't have explained why he responded the way he did under penalty of death—it just came out.

And even Arthur could tell Francis was not happy.

He stiffened, that cold French look drawing over his face, closing him off, cutting off the supply of fuel to the warmth at his center. When he regarded Arthur anew, he could have been a painting in Versailles, of some noble with bones of dust down lower than the blood-soaked soil of the Revolution.

"Far be it from me to keep you from your family," he said. Arthur suppressed a flinch at the sound of his voice, like the chiseled gray of a stormy sky above a dark ocean. He was on his feet, and making for the kitchen, when Arthur's cursed mouth decided to have another say in the situation.

"Don't go throw a fit now," he said. "You know it's true!"

"That you have to leave, or that not everything is about me?" Francis' head snapped around to look at Arthur with a smoldering look. "Because I think I understand both quite well now, thank you."

"Did you expect me to stay forever?" he asked. "You're the one who said relationships come and go!" Francis appeared on the verge of speech, then rethought, regrouped, and replied at last.

"No. I didn't. Go ahead and look into train tickets while I'm at work tomorrow." The door to the bedroom shut with a crack, and Arthur spent a long time wondering if that meant he was sleeping on the couch. At length he decided he would rather _not_ open the door, and be the subject of more of _that_ , so he made himself comfortable on the sofa, and told himself he didn't need the pajamas that were in the bedroom.

He had had some foolish notion that morning would heal the wounds of the night before, but he had forgotten Francis' talent for holding a grudge. The silence of the morning told him about where he stood. Loitering awkwardly around the sitting room while Francis got ready for work, Arthur could think of nothing to say that might make the atmosphere less painful.

The walk to the bakery was no less illuminating, and Arthur followed Francis hesitantly for at least a block, wondering if he was even supposed to come with. But he usually did, so he followed through in the end, although he received no goodbye at their arrival but another door shut in his face.

It took him the whole of the day to consider apologizing might be the best way to start. It took until Francis got home for him to decide he probably _should_ , which left him with no time to think about the actual apology itself. It came much in the way his initial slip-up had.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he said loudly and abruptly, putting his wine glass down too hard on the table while Francis put a pot on for pasta. Silence. "I didn't mean it to sound…er…like…well, I didn't mean to accuse you of anything." Silence. Arthur began to fidget nervously. He wished he was in the kitchen and could see what Francis was doing. He could hear the stove click on. In the middle of his anguished debate on whether or not to add more onto the apology, Francis appeared in the doorway.

"That's your apology?" His tone threw Arthur back on the defensive at once.

"Yes, I thought it might patch things up so yes, there you go!" Francis stared flatly at him, arms folded, not appearing the slightest inch impressed.

"That was _terrible._ And your half-assed apology has not 'patched things up'. Maybe if you thought about someone else for once in your life—"

"Are you accusing me of being _selfish_?" Arthur demanded incredulously.

"Yes, I am!" Francis replied heatedly, straightening up. "You _are._ I invited you to come here and stay with me and fed you and I—I _opened up_ —"

"So what? I _owe_ you something? Sex? Is that what you're on about?" Francis' face turned redder than Arthur had ever seen it and he wondered if maybe tonight, he'd be sleeping in the park.

"I _never_ made you do _anything—_ "

"No, I didn't mean—" Even in the heat of an argument, even Arthur tried to backtrack on what had just come out of the garbage dump of his mouth.

"—and if you are even going to _delude_ yourself into thinking that, you should go. Soon. I have enough problems in my life without you convincing yourself I _took advantage of you_ or whatever it is you think happened here." The door shut again a few minutes later, but tonight, it was followed by Arthur's valise and everything that had been emptied out of it being dumped outside shortly after. Exile.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" Arthur groaned aloud, flopping back on the couch.

He knew this time he couldn't wait all day to try again. While they had coffee and day-old pastries over breakfast, he tried again, trying to soothe the perpetually agitated waters of his temper.

"Francis," he said quietly, hands wrapped around his bowl of coffee. "Listen, I…I'm really sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have said that, I didn't mean it. It was…"

"Unforgivably rude?" Francis suggested. "Completely out of line? Liable to get me _arrested_ , if you told anyone else anything even close to that?" Arthur stared down in his coffee, shame burning his face.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Were you _that_ angry with me?" Arthur wished sincerely that Francis didn't have to get to the emotional heart of everything he said, and could just bottle it up and put it aside like a proper gentleman.

"No, I…I don't know why I said it."

"That's not an explanation," Francis said. Arthur dawdled, swirling his coffee around. "What about what you said the day before?"

"What—Oh. Right. Ah…I didn't, er, I didn't really mean that either…I mean, it _is_ true, but I didn't mean you were acting like that…" Francis drummed his fingers on the table.

"You know, if you go around saying all these things you don't actually mean, you're going to run into people who don't know that half the things that come out of your mouth are things you don't really mean," he said dryly. Arthur continued to give his coffee a chagrined look. Francis took a deep breath and let them sit in silence for a moment. "I should apologize too," he said quietly. "You're right, you didn't plan to stay here forever. I shouldn't have gotten defensive about it." He left a space where Arthur felt he was supposed to say something.

"It's fine." Francis closed his eyes briefly.

"You could have brought it up at a better time," he hinted.

"Oh. Right. Well it just—I had just been thinking of it, so I thought I should say something…"

"While we were making out." A desert in a Parisian living room. Arthur sighed.

"Fine, fine. I'm sorry about that too. Are you happy now?"

"No, but I'm feeling less like throwing all your stuff out the door," he said.

"Well. That's an improvement." After a pause, Arthur laughed, and grudgingly, Francis did as well.

Arthur began a half-hearted search for tickets home, and sent a postcard as well, to give his family updates. When Francis had gotten his mail the day before, there had been a very anxious card from Arthur's mother there, wondering _When we might expect you home, dear?_

On Francis' day off (Sunday), they went on a walk to Montmartre, so Francis could show Arthur around his initial destination. He insisted they take their time, as there were many things to see there, and he wanted to be sure Arthur got a decent tour before leaving. Despite his distaste for thinking about Arthur's departure, he seemed unable to stop mentioning it.

He took Arthur around the Moulin Rouge, and the places Toulouse Lautrec had lived and worked.

"He's one of my favorite artists," Francis sighed. "His work is so unique and it has such a great…" He tried to think of the proper English word, "…aesthetic. It's very…pleasing to look at."

"Pleasing to the eye?" Arthur suggested.

"Yes. What do you think?" he asked, as they looked over a stand of small reprints. Arthur mulled over the question briefly.

"I don't know. He's alright. I'm…not much of an art critic." He sent Francis a helpless look. They had moved past the fight of a few days ago, which was a relief for the peace of the apartment. Francis still thought Arthur failed to realize _why_ his initial remarks had upset him in the first place, but he had at least come to acknowledge Arthur hadn't _intended_ to mortally offend him. It just happened. For all his put-together exterior, sometimes the man was a train wreck.

He wound them all the way up the hill to the Sacre Coeur, filling Arthur in on the history of it. They toured the inside, and then came out to look over Paris in the late afternoon sun peeking through the clouds.

"Are you going to stay at the bakery?" Arthur asked.

"Hm? I suppose," Francis said.

"For good, I mean," Arthur clarified.

"Forever? Oh, I don't know. I like working there," he said. He thought about it. "I suppose I wouldn't _mind_ staying there forever. But I don't know that I _plan_ on it." They took a seat on a bench and Arthur squinted down at his shoes. "Still thinking about what you want to do?" Francis guessed.

"Yeah. I mean, the obvious choice would be to go beg Mr. Solomons for my job back and just stay there," he sighed. "But…"

"That's not what you want to do," Francis surmised.

"For the rest of my life?" Arthur worried his lower lip with his teeth. "It just…that feels like a long time to work at the brewery."

"The rest of our lives doing anything sounds like a long time," Francis said. Arthur sighed again. "But if we have a chance to try out different things," he theorized, "now is the time to do it."

"Why now?" Arthur asked.

"We're young," Francis answered with a shrug. "We have no one depending on us: no spouse, no children…"

"I suppose you're right," Arthur said. "Still, it feels like everyone is just tapping their foot waiting for me to make my choices and settle down."

"Maybe adults forget what it was like to be young," Francis said. "Or maybe they didn't have the chance, so they don't understand why we can't just accept whatever lot is given to us."

"Maybe they're just judgmental assholes who envy us our youth," Arthur suggested. Francis laughed unreservedly, and when he looked at Arthur again, the Englishman was smiling, looking just the tiniest bit pleased with himself.

"Maybe that too," Francis agreed with a smile. He leaned back against the bench, stretching his legs out in front of him. After a pause, he decided to risk opening up their conversation from a few days ago again, now that they were presumably level-headed. "Arthur, I have to ask…are you really anxious about going home? Or is it just…an obligation?"

As he did so often, Arthur responded by asking, "What do you mean?"

"Well I was thinking," he said, tipping his head to the side, "that if you wanted to stay a bit more long-term in Paris… you're welcome to stay with me. It might be good for you to have some time to yourself without having to worry about your responsibilities back home." He looked over at Arthur. "But if you really are wanting to get back, I understand." He looked back out over the city, and there was a long silence from Arthur. Francis accepted the rejection.

"Okay."

He jumped, and nearly choked in surprise. "What?" His gaze snapped back to Arthur.

"Okay," Arthur said with a shrug. "I—you know, I'm tired of thinking everything over for months and months before I do it. If I stay here longer, I'll have some time to think about what I want to do back home, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Dad can't say I'm eating up their food without working, because I'm paying for the trip, and you're right—when else will I have the time to do this?"

Francis looked at Arthur with a sulky moue.

"What's that look for?"

"My fantastic company has nothing to do with your decision?" The tips of Arthur's ears pinked and he looked away.

"If it weren't for you I wouldn't even be here anymore," he muttered. "I would've had to catch a boat home after sleeping on the street the first night."

"That's true, I am very generous," Francis sighed, sweeping his hair back from his face with an elegant gesture. Arthur took the chance to jab him in the ribs. "Aie!"

"You were serious about that, weren't you?" Arthur said, suddenly sobering up.

"Of course," Francis said, blinking in mild surprise. "To be honest, it's nice to have company in the apartment. I'm not used to living alone." He couldn't say he cared for it much either. Sure, it was nice being able to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, eat what he wanted for dinner, stay out as late as he wanted…but he was too social to take pleasure in that indefinitely. He'd had his fill—now he wouldn't mind a few months of Arthur's company.

A tentative smile spread across Arthur's face. "Good. I mean—I wouldn't want you to just offer because of pity or something."

"Not at all," Francis said, throwing an arm around Arthur's shoulders and pulling him in close. "I do actually enjoy your company, as hard as it is to believe." He grinned as Arthur wriggled out of his grip.

"Hard to believe? I am a perfectly _cordial_ individual," he said, his nose thrust comically up into the air.

"Ha! Yesterday you started cursing out the butcher because he gave you the wrong cut of meat," Francis said.

"It wasn't about that!" Arthur tried to argue. "And I think he was just as put out with me!" Before Francis could dish out his skeptical reply, the first raindrops pattered down on them, and Francis looked up at the clouds.

"We better get inside," he said.

"Oh, it's just a bit of rain," Arthur scoffed as Francis rose. "But I suppose we may as well head back." Francis frowned a little, but decided not to argue, and they started down the hill. Before they were halfway down, the patter had turned into a deluge.

"Just a bit of rain!" Francis shouted at Arthur over the noise, trying to shield his face with his hands so he could see worth a franc.

"Shut up!" Arthur snapped back, glaring over. Café owners were shutting their windows and doors against the downpour, and all but the most stoic of customers had retreated inside. A heartbeat later, Arthur let out a bark of laughter. "You look like a drowned cat!"

"You're the cat!" Francis exclaimed, drawing back, offended. Arthur laughed even harder, looking at Francis' face, and had to stop their hasty jog down the street to catch his breath. "Stop being so rude, it's your fault we're stuck here!" Francis gave him a shove.

"I don't control the weather!" Arthur pushed back, but he was still laughing, and after a few moments, Francis had to realize how ridiculous he must look. This was aided by the customers of a nearby tailor shop gawking at them through the windows, wondering who the asses fighting out in the middle of the street during a thunderstorm were, no doubt.

"Oh, let's just get inside until this passes," Francis said, giving a halfhearted push to Arthur's shoulder. His response was a snort, but he followed Francis into the closest restaurant, where they joined the other patrons waiting it out inside, and Francis apologized for them dripping all over the floor.

They ordered hot drinks and when the storm had passed, evening was sighing over the city, and they finished the walk back down into Paris proper, where, they realized, the storm had not touched at all.

"Guess we were just lucky," Arthur joked. Francis, his hair still shedding water, grumbled and scowled.

"Sure. Lucky."

"Do you want to learn French or not?" Arthur threw down his pencil in frustration.

"Of course I do, but you're a rotten teacher!"

"I've explained it three times," Francis said, breathing tensely through his nose and trying not to snap.

"It doesn't matter! These all sound the bloody same! You've given me three different verb forms and _they all sound exactly the same._ " Arthur's hands were curling up into fists on his thighs and Francis could see him shuttering himself off the chance of further embarrassment, and thereby any more learning. He took a deep breath and pushed off the annoyance they had both been battling the last half an hour.

"Look. Why don't we go back to parts of the body?" he asked, taking the pencil and setting it down beside the notebook.

"I don't want to do parts of the body," Arthur grumbled, folding his arms. His thick brow formed an eave over his eyes.

"Come on," Francis coaxed, leaning in and brushing Arthur's hair back from his forehead.

"No." Francis sighed and sat back in his seat. He grabbed the seat of Arthur's chair and jerked on it until Arthur was partly facing him.

"Let's do emotions then," he said. "Do you remember the word for anger?"

"La colère," Arthur replied sourly. _It's a good thing he remembers that one_ , Francis thought. _He'll need it._

"What about sadness?"

"Le tristesse."

"La," Francis corrected lightly. "Sadness is a woman leaning on the doorframe at night, looking out at the stars, thinking of her love far away at war." He had found such imagery useful for leaning Italian, but Arthur let out another huff through his nose and Francis sensed he was in imminent danger of losing his pupil for the rest of the day.

"How about happiness?" Francis asked, tilting his head to the side, speaking gently.

"Bonheur. Le."

"Good," he said, nodding. He scooted forward so one of his knees was between Arthur's. "Boredom?"

"Ennui. People use that in English sometimes, but only when they're fucking ponces." Francis chuckled and smiled. The hedgehog had curled in on itself and was showing only spines, but Francis could coax him into relaxation again.

"Tenderness?" he asked, lifting his gaze to hold Arthur's.

"La tendress. That one's easy." Francis smiled.

"Love?"

"L'amour."

"L'amour," Francis repeated in a low, soft voice. "It's the most beautiful word we have." Arthur snorted derisively, put his palm against Francis' forehead, and shoved him back.

"You're a terrible teacher," he said. Francis stuck out his lower lip in a pout and sat back in his seat.

"Why so cruel, Arthur?"

"First of all, you can't explain things worth a damn, and secondly, you can't keep it in your pants whenever we talk about anything that could be even vaguely suggestive," Arthur told him. Francis had a hard time combatting the accusations.

"We were talking about _tenderness_ , not sex," was what he came up with. Arthur made an impressive display of showing just about only the whites of his eyes, the iris was rolled so far back.

"With you, they're one and the same."

"They are not!" Francis exclaimed. "Tenderness is a platonic emotion, Arthur. Sex can _be_ tender, but you can have one without the other. Although, they do go well together." When Arthur didn't reply, Francis canted his head slightly to the side, studying his face, wondering what little gears were turning in that English brain.

Abruptly, Arthur leaned forward and kissed him, his fingertips bumping and brushing against Francis' cheek. Surprised but pleased—which described a great many of Francis' reactions to gestures of affection or desire from Arthur—he returned the kiss, planting a hand on Arthur's knee for balance. Arthur's lips were dry, as they often were, and warm, and a sensation Francis had yet to grow bored of.

"You're a ponce," Arthur told him when he pulled back, but his tone wasn't as acerbic as Francis might have expected.

"You have all the emotional sensitivity of a tank, Arthur," Francis responded.

"What a stupid comparison. Tanks have a hard outer shell to protect them from the _weapons constantly being fired at them._ " Francis sighed wearily and shook his head, rising to his feet.

"Only in wartime, Arthur," he said. Perhaps, having grown up when they did, neither of them would ever truly be accustomed to living in peacetime. Their own lives had become a metaphor for war, jobs and relationships replacing Germans and Italians on the battlefield, and each of them, the beleaguered commander trying to hold his troops together. "What do you want for dinner? Oh—wait, I just remembered I wanted ham. You can pick tomorrow."

Arthur nodded idly, and Francis wondered if he was simply tired, and thus his impatience for today's lesson. It was just as likely as Arthur's typical temperamental attitude getting the better of him.

"Do you want to come to the market with me?" Francis suggested. Arthur shook his head.

"Tomorrow," he said. Francis' head bobbed in agreement.

"You can help me pick out what you want to eat," he said, placing his hand briefly on Arthur's shoulder as he passed by to get his wallet and go.

"Perfect." Arthur's tone was distracted, but Francis was accustomed to that. They both had, he thought, a tendency to get lost in their own heads, and forget what was happening around them.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, dear," he cooed playfully, blowing Arthur a kiss on his way out the door. Arthur's mouth twitched but didn't manage a smile, and absently, after a moment, he raised his hand in some attempt at a goodbye wave. The door was already shutting.

Anxiety had been sowing seeds in Arthur's chest since before he left London, and the crop was coming in for harvest. He could feel the leaves creeping up his throat, the roots curling around his ribs, but he refused to acknowledge it. He decided to take a shower to calm down. But when he went in to the bathroom, and saw his soap—because he didn't abide by the flowery-smelling things that Francis liked to buy—nestled among Francis' things, he made a leap as to the source of his anxiety, and flew back to the bedroom to pack.

When Francis got home, his haphazardly-stuffed suitcase was out in the living room and Arthur was dashing around the apartment trying to clean up any messes he had left and collect any stray things he had left lying about.

"Arthur…?" Francis paused in the doorway (which was sort of also the living room, given the size of the apartment) with his basket of groceries. "What are you doing?"

Arthur stopped his frenetic flight, holding an errant sock, and looked at Francis like a wild animal caught thieving. "…getting my things. I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" Francis' eyes widened, and Arthur cursed himself for not getting out sooner. If he'd managed to leave before Francis had returned, he could've just penned a cordially distant letter from Calais and not had to have the conversation that was coming—the Please Stay conversation. "Now?" He shut the door and quickly went into the kitchen to put down his groceries. Arthur briefly contemplated a sprint to the door.

But Francis emerged just as he was telling himself that was a stupid idea, and he was trapped.

"Did you decide this just now, while I was out?" Arthur clutched defensively at his sock.

"…yes. But I've been thinking about it."

"I thought you decided to stay," Francis reminded him.

"For a while, not forever," he said.

"Is this about my French teaching?"

"No, it's about the fact that I'm not French, and all my family and my life is back in England," Arthur said, girding himself for a fight.

"Is it about me?" Dead silence blanketed the room, and Arthur really wished Francis would look anywhere but at him. Looking into Francis' eyes was like looking into a dream, one that lulled him irresistibly into its vortex. "Arthur?"

"…no." Even Arthur rolled his eyes at his own unconvincingness.

"I wish you'd say if it was," Francis said.

"I would, I'm telling you it's not."

"I don't believe you."

"Well that's your problem!" Arthur exclaimed. "Listen Francis, I just have to go, okay!"

"No, you've got some crazy idea in your head and you won't tell me what it is because you know I'll make you see that it's crazy!" Francis fired back, throwing his hands out to the sides. "Look at yourself! You make a decision in an hour that all of a sudden you have to immediately go back to England?"

"This isn't about what makes sense to you!" The fight Arthur had been preparing for had come at last, and he threw himself into the fray. "You just don't want me to go because you want me to be here with you!"

"Of course I do!" Francis said, gaping at Arthur. "I like having you here, I've told you! But that doesn't mean this isn't crazy!"

"You're completely biased! You can't make me stay here!"

"I'm not trying to make you, I'm telling you it's stupid for you to go running back all of a sudden!" Francis argued. "Look, if you want to break up with me just say so! I deserve that!"

"It's not. About. You! Stop acting like everything that I do when I live here has to be related to you somehow!"

"Fine," Francis said, gritting his teeth and beginning to withdraw from the heat of anger, into the tundra that always followed his outbursts. "Go without an explanation. Do whatever you want. Completely forget about everything we've shared since you've been here."

"You can't emotionally blackmail me into staying," Arthur snapped.

"Didn't it mean anything to you?"

"Of course it did," Arthur said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He drew himself up, going rigid, away from all pliability and suggestiveness. "But that doesn't change reality."

"Oh?" Francis' scathing tone left no room for Arthur to relent. "And what's that?"

"I can't stay here forever. You know that, you're just throwing a fit about it because you think all it takes is some sweet words to make me forget it."

Francis just stared at him, arms crossed, and they both let the silence roll on, and on.

"Don't let me keep you deluded any longer then," Francis said at last, turning to the kitchen. Arthur finished packing his things and then realized he had buried his pocket watch somewhere, and all he knew was that it was evening. Sidling into the kitchen archway, he spoke quietly.

"Er. What…what time is it?"

"After seven," Francis said primly, after a long pause where Arthur wondered if he intended to be so petty as to not answer at all. The pause after stretched out as Arthur waited for him to offer a solution before he accepted his fate. After what Arthur could only presume was some kind of internal debate, Francis finally said, "You could at least wait until tomorrow morning. At this rate, there won't be any more boats leaving Calais by the time you get there."

"…right. Probably a good idea."

They ate dinner in silence, and Arthur slept on the couch without a word passing between them.

Francis knew Arthur had been only partially right in his accusations—Arthur _couldn't_ stay here forever, but Francis wasn't upset because Arthur had not been persuaded into staying. He was upset because Arthur's abrupt departure only reminded him that they couldn't have any kind of life together, if they ever decided that's what they wanted. Francis was limited by half in the people he could love, and be with, and there was too much of him that would have to remain forever murky, out of view, and it made him want to scream and throw a tantrum like he did as a child. But no amount of broken things—smashed vases, shattered plates, torn newspapers—would soothe the anguish of his soul.

He lay curled on the bed, not weeping, but not sleeping either, consumed with the maelstrom inside of him, and praying so desperately for some solution to his torment, as adamantly as he had ever prayed for an end to the war.

In the morning, he sat at the table exhaustedly sipping his coffee, and listening to Arthur pretending to be asleep still on the couch. He thought about calling him out, but found the effort of speaking too great, so he waited until Arthur had peeled himself off the cushions, hair resembling that of an electrocution victim, and joined him at the table.

Francis watched his fingers tap the edges of his bowl, and his eyes dart from side to side. He wanted to be immature. He wanted to refuse to speak and not talk to Arthur, and let him run away and then _someday he'd realize_ how he'd hurt Francis. He'd write then, and apologize, or he'd come back to France and say all the things Francis wanted to hear him say— _I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left, I do care for you, our relationship meant something_. But he knew that if he allowed himself to fall into that trap, that they would simply part on poor terms and never speak again. Because Arthur would never be the one to bridge an emotional rift between them; it just wasn't in his nature. He'd accept that Francis was now forever angry with and disappointed in him and carry on the rest of his life never thinking the problem could be fixed. Still, some petulant part of Francis' mind whined that it shouldn't have to be him, that he wasn't _obliged_ to fix anything. The more mature part of his brain reminded him that no, he wasn't. But if he wanted to leave things on good terms with Arthur, and not spend the rest of his life lamenting their fallout, he was.

All this thinking took him through breakfast, Arthur collecting himself to go, and a bit of dawdling at the door.

"I can walk you to the station," he offered suddenly. Arthur blinked at him. "If you get lost, you'll be in trouble."

"I think I know this area a little better now," Arthur said, but he didn't outright reject the proposal, which Francis took as acceptance. They made it out to the sidewalk before Francis spoke again.

"I'm sorry about last night," he said so quietly Arthur almost missed it. "I was…being unfair. I know you can't stay forever." Arthur's shoulders seemed to relax a smidge.

"Hm." He acknowledged what Francis had said, but made no reply.

"I've just gotten used to you being here," he continued when Arthur said nothing. "And I guess I…let myself forget you'd have to go home sometime."

"Well. No harm done," Arthur said brusquely, keeping his step purposeful. Francis wanted to believe there were no hard feelings, which was a relief, but he found himself disappointed with the reply. He wished Arthur would be more honest with him about his feelings, but that necessitated Arthur being honest with himself, which wasn't liable to happen without strong impetus.

When they arrived at the train station, Francis captured Arthur in a hug, not giving him a chance to dodge or refuse. But the bony Englishman didn't fight him, just patted his back gently.

"It was good to see you again," Francis said. If all of time and space passed by, and he never saw Arthur again, he would always be glad they had their brief reunion. There was a vulnerability they had shared in the last month and a half that had completed their relationship, so that Francis would never be left wondering about their childhood affections, or what Arthur would say if he knew "the truth". It whispered a peace into his heart he had not expected to receive.

"You too," Arthur said genuinely.

"Travel safe, okay?" Francis squeezed him and then drew back to look into Arthur's eyes, to seize some part of him to guard in his heart forever.

"Not really up to me, but I'll pass the message on to the conductor," Arthur joked. A smile passed over Francis' mouth. He studied Arthur a moment more, rubbed Arthur's upper arm, and tried to think of what else to say that wasn't painfully obvious already.

"Take care of yourself in England," he said. "I'll miss you." Arthur nodded, and blurted out:

"I'll miss you as well. And I will."

"You can write, if you want."

"Perhaps I shall."

"Arthur?"

"Yes?"

"I'll always think of you as a friend." The lingering gazes left the patina stains of copper left in the rain on Francis' heart, and he thought how simple, and how impossible it would be to lean forward, and give Arthur a small kiss goodbye. Just a tiny token of his affection—but less forgivable than war.

"I think there are some things you go through and you have to be friends when you come out," Arthur said quietly. "Being war refugees is one of them." Francis nodded, swallowing hard around the bittersweet ache in his throat. Arthur thrust his hand out. "Here's to putting the past behind us, and moving forward."

"To moving forward." Francis grasped Arthur's hand and they shook. "I'll keep checking the bookstores for your name." He smiled.

"You do that," Arthur said, releasing his hand and picking up his valise as the conductor began to shout that it was time to board. "Here's this: I'll send you a copy, if I ever get anything published. Signed and all."

"What a treasure," Francis said, his smile growing. "I'll be waiting, then." Arthur nodded, turned, and walked through a cloud of steam, back into his world, and left behind Francis'. It was only when the train began to pull away that Francis realized the word "goodbye" had never passed his lips.

* * *

Before anyone breaks out the pitchforks over me pulling a fast one on y'all, this is NOT the last chapter. There is more to come.

As usual, thank you to everyone who's reviewed, re-reading your comments inspired me to crack this one open again!


	4. Retreat

The relief that Arthur felt once he was on a Dover-bound boat somehow didn't run as deep as he had anticipated. He'd left in such a rush that he hadn't had time to send word to his family, so he was forced to find his own way to the house once he'd landed.

When he arrived, it was late evening; he could hear the faint roar of London traffic, beneath a sky painted inky blue and too shrouded in smog to show any stars.

"Hello?" he called into the house. No answer. There was a black and white cat asleep on the sitting room window sill, but no people appeared present. "Anyone home?"

Silence.

Eventually, he heard the click-click of the dog's nails on the wood floors as he ambled stiffly out. Giving the dog a pat for the astronomical effort—and to congratulate him for being able to tell that someone had come in, being as he was mostly blind and deaf these days.

"Well, hello to you anyway," he said, carrying his bag up to his room. "Hey!" When he walked in, he was sure someone had changed something—someone had been in his room. Immediately irked, he began to examine all his possessions, but he couldn't find a thing out of place. So why did he have the feeling something had been altered? Brushing it off with annoyance as the addling of his mind from too much travel, he went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

In the night, the front door opened and he heard a gusty sigh. Someone rattled the hat rack, and Mairead shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing her lower back, eyes squeezed shut. Arthur once again marveled that her hairband didn't snap right off the mass of red waves wrested into a bun through—surely—black magic. It took her a moment to see him, reading an old newspaper at the table, but when she did, she stopped dead, some mild shock on her freckled face.

"Gwydion. What in God's name are you doing here?" Arthur made a wide gesture with one hand over the paper, clean kitchen table, and his cup of tea.

"Reading the paper, obviously."

"In the _house_ , dum-dum. Last I looked you'd gone tearing off to Paris without so much as a by your leave." She pulled a pot of soup out of the fridge, took a look in it, and put it on the stove to warm up.

"I'm back," Arthur said, folding the paper. "It was…time to come home."

"Fuck, why?" she asked, pouring herself a measure of whisky. "If I could run off to Paris and stay with a friend, you'd never see me again."

"What, mum's that bad?" Arthur snorted.

"Not mum, work." Mairead took a drink and rubbed her eyes.

"Where is she, anyway?" Arthur asked. "I've been here for hours and I haven't seen anyone."

"Dearest mummy is up north visiting Angus and bride, so you'll have to wait a few days for your welcome home hugs and kisses. You're not getting them from me." Mairead fished a wooden spoon out of a cramped drawer to stir the soup.

"If you kiss me, I'll burn your copy of _Finnegan's Wake_."

"Touch my books and I'll beat you senseless," Mairead replied at once, jabbing the spoon threateningly at him. Only because she was his sister did Arthur know there was a lot more bark than bite behind that tone—but he also didn't doubt that she would enact a bloody revenge on him if he actually did damage anything of hers. "Don't think because you're supposedly 'a man' now I can't still kick your arse from here to kingdom come."

"I'd like to see you try!" Arthur remembered a heartbeat later he shouldn't ever goad his older siblings unless he was prepared for them to take the challenge, no matter how asinine. Mairead lunged in his direction and he leaped out of his chair like a rabbit, but rather than making a real go for him, she just laughed and he scowled.

"Luckily for you, you'll have to annoy me an awful lot for me to bother with that," she sighed, pouring herself a cup of tea and leaving the soup to heat on the stove. She took a seat at the table as Arthur recomposed himself. She sighed again, curling her fingers stiffly around the mug. The room was quiet for a few minutes. "Things'll be better in Dublin," she murmured, unprompted. "I can't wait to get out of here. Seamus and I are going to make a real go of it, Arthur. It'll be good. We've been apart too long."

"Yeah?" Arthur shifted in his seat, reaching out for his own lukewarm cup of black tea. "So er…when's he sending for you? Got a date, then?"

"Soon," she said, with a frown. "I've told him if he doesn't write before May, I'm coming anyway. What was all the point in being married if we're never see each other?" She huffed. "I thought when he came here…well, I suppose it was asking a lot, to leave his home."

"Isn't that what he's doing to you?"

"It's different," she said. "Seamus loves Ireland. I won't look in the rear-view mirror when I leave London." She got up and went to take the soup off the stove. "Do you want some?"

"Just a bit," Arthur said. "I had something earlier."

"I hope you didn't bloody touch that ham," she said sharply. "That's for my casserole for the church festival this weekend."

"I didn't," Arthur lied. "Your stupid casserole is safe."

"Mairead! Have you seen the price of butter today? This is robbery!" Daffyd came into view, ruffling his dark curls. "Oi. Gwyn. You're home."

"It does seem that way."

"Welcome back."

"Thank you, Daffyd." He cast a pointed look at Mairead, who just took down a third bowl.

"Tommy's coming over, that alright?" Daffyd said. Mairead peered into the pot.

"Yeah, alright. Go get the bread, will you? Put it on the table." Arthur closed his eyes and sank into the house, into his family, into England. Here, where everything made sense, and the only fear he had was of his life being dull and unfulfilling—which, really, was easy to ignore, with enough tasks to do and rum to drink. He wrapped the familiarity around him like a blanket, tugged all his belongings into his safety ship, and closed his eyes to all the rest.

Francis and Emma made baguettes on Tuesday morning, and croissants in the afternoon, and sourdough loaves in the evening.

"Do you want to go out for a drink?" Francis asked her as they were closing up shop.

"It's been a while," she agreed. "Sure. Lars can heat up leftovers for dinner. Did I tell you about the cat that sneaked into our house yesterday?"

"No," Francis said. "Go ahead, I want to hear it." And so Emma talked, and Francis encouraged her, and they locked up the bakery and wandered down the streets towards St. Germain-de-Pres.

"Do you want to go to that one bar with the dog out front?" Emma asked. "There's supposed to be live jazz tonight!" She smiled at him, and he managed a little one in return, nodding in agreement.

"That sounds perfect," he said.

The music was lovely, but too lively for Francis' mood, and after a couple drinks, he nudged Emma and leaned over to ask the question close to her ear. "Do you want to go outside?"

She agreed, and they relocate to a corner of the available seating outside, sitting close together against the early spring chill. Emma lit a cigarette, and Francis remembered he'd forgotten to buy more on the way to work that morning.

"So what's on your mind?" she asked.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Of course," she chuckled, blowing out some smoke. "God, these are awful. You've been troubled as long as I've known you, Francis. So what is it?" He sighed gustily, considered asking for one of her cigarettes, and finished the rest of his cognac.

"It's everything," he said.

"Gee Francis, that's a lot of problems," Emma said with a comical frown. "I don't think I can help with everything." Francis shook his head and drummed his fingers on the table.

"I'm just…not happy." This time, Emma allowed him his silence before he continued. "I feel so distant from everything else around me, like I live in a bubble, and no one else can get in, and I can't get out. I feel…not so much like I'm screaming, but like I'm watching myself drown, and instead of running for help, I'm just standing there, watching it happen."

"Jeez, Francis." Emma's eyes widened. "Have you…talked to anyone about this? Maybe a doctor can help."

"Help with what?" Francis asked, his mouth twisted in something wry. "I don't have a broken bone, or a sore throat. I just can't, for the life of me, seem to find anything that makes me happy for more than an afternoon."

"That's…" Emma frowned, her brow furrowing. "That's…not good?"

"I know." Francis leaned back in his seat, putting an elbow over the back of it. "I just can't think of what to do anymore, Emma. I kept telling myself if I stayed positive it would get better. In Paris, it would be better. With a job I like, it would be better. With my own home, it would be better. I have all those things now, and still…" He sighed with a wind to stir the dust in Verdun. "I don't know what to do."

"What if you went h—" He was already shaking his head. "Okay. Well…I think you had the right idea, trying to stay positive," she said.

"Sometimes I feel like takes all the energy I have just to get out of bed and get dressed," he said.

"Francis, I…I don't know what to say," she confessed.

"I don't know that you need to say anything," Francis replied with a slight shrug, looking away. "Just…I wanted to…tell someone, I guess."

"I can listen," Emma offered. "That much I can do. Is there…do you need help with anything?"

Francis shrugged again. "No…" he trailed off, distracted by some thought or flight of fancy.

"Are you still living alone?" she asked. "Do you want a cigarette?"

"No, thank you." He let out a gusty sigh, and looked out to the street. "I am, but…" Emma bit her lip, to not try to fill the silence with more words. "There was someone. For a little while."

"Oh?"

"Yes…an old friend," he said. "But…I don't think she was happy either, and we argued quite a bit, and…she went home last week. France isn't for her, I guess. My life isn't." He reached out for his glass, only to grab it and remember it was empty. "I changed my mind, I will have a cigarette," he murmured.

"Oh, Francis, I'm sorry," Emma said, as she dug the cigarette pack out of her purse and pulled one out for him. "Why don't you…why don't you go after her! Maybe she's made a mistake!" She lit his cigarette and he took a long draw.

"I don't know," he mused, studying the figures passing by the bar. "What if this is one of those decisions she has to make on her own? I tried to make her stay before and it just made things worse."

"Mm. Maybe she needs space then," Emma mused. "Women are like that sometimes, you know. We do need our own space." Francis nodded.

"I'll just have to hope then." He exhaled loudly, and tilted his head back to look up at the starry sky. "Did you say if Lars had been able to get in on that shipping deal?" he asked.

"Oh! Yes, I don't know how he managed, but he has…"

"Expect you'll be asking Mr. Solomons for that job back now," Mr. Kirkland grunted as he cranked a bolt. "Daffyd does good work for him, so he ought at least consider taking you back."

Arthur sighed quietly, leaning back against the workbench. Yes, he supposed he ought to be going to ask for his job back. He'd been back almost twenty-four hours now, which meant it was his father's opinion that he was already late in getting it done. The truth was, Arthur would have sooner clocked into a shift in purgatory than gone back there. It wasn't that the brewery was bad work—it was most like…what was it like?

It was like he was accepting the future his father saw for him. In taking back his punch-card and his apron from Mr. Solomons, he was acknowledging that his father had been right, that there was nothing more meaningful or more interesting in his future—no school, no adventure, no grand romances. And deep in in his core, Arthur knew he rebelled so hard against that acceptance because he feared it was inevitable—that his father was right, and it was just a matter of time before Arthur was worn down enough to see it too.

"Arthur? Pay attention son," came the vaguely irritated voice. "Pass me the flat-tip." Arthur, startled from his thoughts, grabbed the screwdriver without thinking and forked it over.

"Well I was thinking," he began with a kind of hesitance he employed towards no one besides Mr. Kirkland, "that I might talk to the paper." He knew that he couldn't tell his father he had no plans to resume work at the brewery without presenting an acceptable alternative plan.

"The paper?" The mistrust was immediately audible in Mr. Kirkland's voice. "And what are you going to do there?" He could hear the guns cocking.

"Write, dad." What _else_ did his father imagine he'd do there?

"Christ, Arthur. I thought going to France was about getting all these airy-fairy thoughts out of your head." The first burst of gunfire sprayed over Arthur's trench. Mr. Kirkland emerged from under the hood of the car, hands stained with oil, and cast a stone-faced look of disapproval at his youngest. "We talked about this before you left. Turning your nose up at good work isn't going to get you anywhere!" The crack of artillery blasted through the garage and Arthur flattened himself into the mud to avoid the shrapnel. Then it was time to return fire.

"I'm not turning my nose up!" Arthur snapped, stiffening defensively. His eyes flicked to his father's meaty fist, closed around the screwdriver, and he thought of his own slender frame, and wondered why he wasn't more like his father, and if life would be easier if he was. "I'm just…" His gun was jammed, and the damn Jerries were going to—

"Too good for working at the brewery, is that it? Too good for your brother's job?"

"I just want to do something more with my life than the same stupid, mindless job day in and day out!" Arthur shouted. His father's jaw was so tight he thought the muscles might snap, the bone shatter. A direct hit, no survivors.

"Right, because you're meant for something more," his father scoffed, trembling in his anger. "Like the right king of fucking Britain, Arthur's got some kind of destiny the rest of us can only dream of. You better wake up, son. You keep on like this, you'll be king of a street corner." He spat on the garage floor. "You're lucky your mother has a soft spot for you. If it were up to me, you'd be packing your bags tonight. You want to waste your life away and sit around with your thumb up your arse, you can do that on your own." He slammed the door to the house so hard the wall rattled, and Arthur cursed himself. His nose was filled with the smell of smoke and the acrid tang of gunpowder.

Certainly, his father made him want to put his fist through a wall, but he shouldn't have said what he did—he didn't even _mean_ to, it had just slipped out. Of course he was grateful for the work his father had put in to support all of them, but couldn't he see that that life just wasn't for Arthur?

A cold fear washed over him and he wondered if he had been wrong—if perhaps, he was not so different from his father. What if Mr. Kirkland too, had once wanted more from life? Once dreamed of a greater future? What if he had felt this as well, and been driven to his current mindset by the trials of life?

 _No_ , Arthur thought savagely. There had never been anything in his father that dreamed.

Filled with an equal measure of frustration with himself and his father, Arthur left the garage. Unwilling to hang around the house with his father in a temper, he went for a walk to the library. It was a fair distance away—he had to take a bus—but sitting among the books always made him feel better.

As he browsed along the shelves, his eyes passed over a title on the Arthurian legends, and he pause. He took it from the shelf, and flipped errantly through the pages.

Was it true? Did he have his head in the clouds? Had all his dreaming and reading of epic tales convinced him that there was more to life than there was? No mystical lady lying in wait in a lake was going to bestow a sword upon him, and no fair maiden was ever going to give him a token (not, he thought with biting chagrin, that he would really want her to). No magic, no heavenly clash between good and evil, no threads of fate.

 _Gwydion_ , Mairead had called him as a child. _Of the trees_. Because he had loved to climb trees and play in the garden. Additionally, because she had been reading a book on such legends, that claimed King Arthur had gone first by the name Gwydion before his Christian baptism. Maybe sharing a name with such a grand character had done him no favors. Maybe he had allowed himself to think that he too, was owed a great destiny, a place in the history books.

But then, what was he to do? Accept his mundane life and take up his brewery apron once again? Find a milquetoast girl he could stand to be around for more than few hours at a time, and get married? And what then? Have a _child?_ Grow old and only in his most private moments, remember that he had ever wanted anything else?

 _I'd rather die_ , he thought, shelving the book. A life that inspired such revulsion in him was no life at all. Learning to eek out moments of happiness in a life of drudgery wasn't living—it was desperation. For once, he checked out nothing, and went straight back home.

Mrs. Kirkland was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, with Edith Piaf playing on the radio. A sharp stick twisted into Arthur's chest, but he grimaced and mastered himself to ignore it.

"Your father is ready to have you keelhauled," his mother informed him as he approached. She looked up with such disappointment on her face that Arthur hung his head. "And I understand where he's coming from. What's gotten into you, Arthur?" Mrs. Kirkland had only ever called him by his name. "That was a terrible thing to say to your father. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's time for you to move on."

"Mum…" Arthur looked around the kitchen floor. "I didn't mean to say it, I really didn't. But—he doesn't understand!"

"I don't understand either, Arthur," she replied. "What is it that's so bad about taking the job back? Isn't that why you came home?" Arthur almost gaped at her, shocked to think his mother knew him so little as to think he would come home for a stupid job making beer.

"Mum, I just…" He sighed leaned against the counter with a deep frown. "I just think I would go crazy if I clocked into work tomorrow and knew I was looking my whole life in the face."

"Daffyd doesn't mind the job," she said.

"Daffyd is a different person than I am," he said.

"Your father thinks you're being stuck-up," she informed him.

"I know."

"I don't want to see you without a job," she said. "You need to support yourself, Arthur. And someday, your family."

"What if I don't have a family?" he asked suddenly, looking up at her. Mrs. Kirkland gave him a sympathetic look that he didn't understand until she spoke.

"You will someday. You'll find a girl who appreciates your gifts, and is willing to overlook how you always misplace things, and burn the eggs," she said with a smile, reaching out to squeeze his arm. "That's what marriage is about—accepting each other's flaws." Arthur slumped, an obscure feeling of disappointment twinging in his gut, and then straightened up, and looked away.

"I just don't know if that life is for me, mum."

"Well…what else is it you think you would do?" He could hear the struggle in her voice to understand something beyond the prescribed path of life.

"I don't know. Write a book," he said, flushing slightly and fixing his gaze elsewhere. What a dumb child he sounded like! He could hear the pity in the way his mother scraped another strip of skin off a potato.

"It's nice to have dreams, Arthur," she said. "And you were always a dreamer. Filled with big stories, and colorful characters." She smiled, and for the first time, Arthur looked at his mother and realized she was old. She had turned fifty-eight last fall, and the spaces around her eyes were spiderwebbed with wrinkles. There were a few brown spots on her hands, and streaks of gray in her hair. "You have such a beautiful imagination. But it used to get in the way of your schoolwork when you were very young, do you remember? Do you remember the spelling bee?"

Arthur groaned. Yes—the spelling bee he'd taken part in when he was seven, entered because all his teachers seemed to think he was a sure-fire win. He read far above his classmates' levels, and devoured everything they gave him—even books from their own personal libraries. He wrote as formally as a child twice his age, and enjoyed his work. But when he had gotten on stage, and been given the word, he had been so intently thinking about a story in his mind that he'd been eliminated for taking too long to respond. He hadn't even realized they had given him the word until he was being ushered off-stage.

"Well…I don't want that to happen to you here," Mrs. Kirkland said, her tone growing gentler, her expression turning to a concerned frown. "Your imagination is lovely, Arthur. But sometimes you need to focus more on real life."

"I know, mum," Arthur said softly, still looking away. "I promise I am thinking about my future. If I wasn't thinking about it at all, I would just take the damn job."

"Don't curse," she said.

"Sorry, mummy. But I just don't think it's a bad thing to try to strive for more," he insisted.

"Maybe not, but you insulted your father awfully, and I want you to apologize," she said, her tone growing sterner. Arthur suppressed a groan.

"Mum, he's been hounding me about my job since I decided to go to France and—"

"Your father is trying to look out for you." The first hint of sharpness entered her tone. "He doesn't want to see you in the poorhouse either, Arthur. We both want to see you with a nice home and a good job and a loving family." Arthur sighed.

"If I promise to get a job, will you both relax? I really don't want to be homeless either."

"Well, good. Now cut up these potatoes," she said. With yet another sigh, Arthur rolled up his sleeves and reached for a knife.

Mairead was harassing the mailman. It was a weekly affair, no matter how many times Mrs. Kirkland told her to give the poor man some space.

"Blimey, she's going to drive the man off his route," Arthur said, leaning back in his chair to look out the window to the mailbox.

"If she doesn't drive him off a cliff first," Daffyd said.

"Pity the sod," Arthur said, settling back down and reaching for another piece of bacon.

"Arthur, don't be rude," Mrs. Kirkland said, getting to her feet. She went to the door to holler at her only daughter. "Mairead! Leave the man to his work and come back to the table!"

She returned reluctantly, and scowled at her two brothers, smirking nastily.

"Pity! The poor lass returns empty-handed!" Arthur exclaimed. "Whatever shall she do?"

"Sit at the window at midnight, calling on the fairies for news," Daffyd replied. "Seamus, oh, Seamus!" He pitched his voice to a falsetto, which quickly became real after a momentary scuffle under the table.

"Don't kick your brother!" Mrs. Kirkland ordered. "Honestly, you lot act like you're still ten years old!"

"At least _I'm_ not out torturing the poor mailman," Arthur said.

"Hush, Arthur!"

"Yes, hush Arthur, the adults are talking," Mairead sneered.

"Mairead!"

Mr. Kirkland abruptly got to his feet, folded the paper, and exited the scene. Mrs. Kirkland gave Arthur a pointed look. Arthur averted his eyes to his plate, dragging his bacon through the split yolk of his fried egg.

Apologies were the worst. Not only did they involve admitting you might have been wrong, but they were so _awkward_ , and what if you were rejected? Then you had just debased yourself for nothing. _Francis has it easy_ , Arthur thought sourly. _Can't argue with a dead parent_. He felt his own wretchedness sharply immediately afterwards, with the memory of Francis' confession not yet six months gone in his head, of how he had tortured himself with information about the concentration camps after learning his father had died there. It was this sense of his own imperiled morality that drove him to swallow the rest of his eggs, dump his plate in the sink with a clatter, and shuffle off to find his father with the paper in the living room, where the din from the table was more distant.

"Hey, dad." He was greeted by the flap of a newspaper page being turned. "I, er…" Couldn't the man even _look_ at him while he was trying to do this? "Look, I didn't mean to—imply anything about you n' mum the other day. There's nothing wrong with what you and Daffyd do. It's just…not for me." The paper crinkled, but maintained an iron curtain between them. "Don't you see, dad?" he pleaded. "I just…I want—I _need_ to test myself. I need…I need to _try._ " God knew his success was no certainty. But Arthur didn't see as how he could live with himself without even _trying_ to achieve something he deemed worthwhile in his own right, for fear he would fail.

And more and more, he felt the teeth of a trap digging into his leg, and no matter how frantically he thrashed, he could not free himself. He was tearing up his flesh and spilling his blood trying to free himself, and he knew if he stayed too long, he would chew off his own foot to get away. It was just a matter of time. But how could dad, with all his stoic, impassive acceptance of all that life threw at him, understand that? The man had lost a _leg_ and Arthur had never seen him do more than briefly grimace when it Arthur supposed it pained him, or grunt a regret that he couldn't do this or that so quickly anymore, if asked to perform a task.

The iron curtain was unwavering, and Arthur fought the sudden urge to swat it out of his father's hands.

"Dad. Dad. I'm trying to…apologize."

"Well don't bother," his father replied. "It's not my life you're in charge of. You've got to live with your own decisions." Arthur scrutinized the paper, trying to determine if his father was picking a fight. Mr. Kirkland lowered the paper. "I think you're making a stupid decision," he informed Arthur bluntly. "But you're far too old for me or mum to stop you. Just don't expect anyone else to come pull you out of the gutter if it goes sideways."

"I'm not expecting anything," he said.

"Good. Then do what you want." The paper went back up, and Arthur glared up at the ceiling before taking his leave.

When he went to bed that night, he was considering the conversation again. What he'd said had certainly been true when he left for Paris. He supposed a lot of it still was.

The Arthurian legends were still swirling around in his mind, and as he lay awake in the dark room, his thoughts turned to Guinevere. King Arthur had had many grand adventures, but he had never really had Guinevere—her heart had belonged to Lancelot from the start. Did that ever make the king lonely? Surely he must have seen—must have known, on some level—that Guinevere was not in love with him. He had the love of his knights, of course, but was it the same? Did he feel that he was lacking something, living a married life with someone who would never love him as a husband?

It was impossible to think of Arthur and Guinevere and marriage without his thoughts dragging Francis in from the sidelines. He had tried to hard not to think of Francis since he had left Paris, but that night a hole was blown straight through his defenses, and his chest ached with a physical pain. Francis' name bubbled up to his lips and he whispered it aloud to the blackened room.

Was Francis thinking of him? When Arthur left, had his chest hurt the way Arthur's did now? Did he ever think of Arthur returning? Or worse—had he moved on already? No, no—Arthur refused to believe it. There was no way Francis could have moved past their tryst that quickly. Surely he must also be nursing wounds from their final skirmishes, trying to marshal his men for reconstruction efforts. He _had_ to be.

His throat felt tight, but he forced it back. He had left Francis behind, and all thoughts of him—that all belonged a world away in Paris, to a life he had chosen to walk away from. Not even a life—an impossible dream. A fantasy. Just like his books. If mum and dad only knew the extent of Arthur's childish daydreaming!

It was all their fault anyway, he thought viciously. If they had never sent him away, he never would have met Francis in the first place! Arthur rarely met people who genuinely stirred his interest, and so it was easy to lie to himself, to everyone else—but when Francis burst back into his life like the blast of a trumpet, with his warm voice and soft eyes and his heart that bore scars so similar to Arthur's—how could he deny himself the truth? There was no use in pretending he didn't crave Francis, everything about him—his company and his touch, his smell and the sound of his laughter and the warmth of his embrace—it was like he had soused himself in a heady wine, and all he could think of was having more.

He rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow. The ache in his breast felt like it was threatening to split his chest in two, and for half a moment, he waited for the feeling of Francis' soothing hand on his back.

Once in Paris he'd had a nightmare (about the war, of course), and he had left the bed to go have a drink of water in the kitchen. Francis found him half an hour later, sitting at the kitchen table, watching the street lights outside the window. Arthur remembered how Francis, still half-asleep, had leaned over the back of the chair to wind his arms around Arthur and murmur in his ear for him to come back to bed. He'd gone back to sleep with Francis nestled cozily in the curve of his body, an arm thrown over Francis' waist, considering the marvel of Francis noticing he was gone, and coming to get him.

It could never be—Arthur knew that to be true. If his dream about working for the newspaper was far-fetched, any thoughts he had about having a life with Francis were plainly delusional. There was no future for them, there couldn't be. Francis was taking himself on a path to self-destruction, and if Arthur went with, there was nothing but ruin coming for him. The war might have doomed Francis—or maybe that was just fate, and would have happened whether or not the world decided to implode on itself—but that didn't mean Arthur had to go down too.

This night, and only this night, he allowed himself to wallow in the agony of having to make the only choice available to him. And then, he would move on.

Alas, things were rarely so simple, as much as Arthur liked to think he could change reality through the sheer force of his will. He slept badly that night and was in a foul mood all the next day, snapping and snarling at anyone who spoke to him. He left the house for a few hours only to make his parents believe he was doing something useful (and because he couldn't bear listening to any of their voices anymore), but wound up at the bar before five p.m. Knowing he couldn't go home tipsy, he simply stayed until he knew the family would have eaten already, and then went home. He argued with mum, who was predictably not thrilled by his coming home drunk and missing dinner without giving a word.

Nevertheless, he got out of bed a few hours later after some tossing and turning to go down and continue. If he was going to drink, he might as well commit, right? So he sat down at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey he'd found in the pantry, incinerating a few more feelings with every burning swallow.

"Bit late for this, isn't it?" He lifted his head to see his sister in the kitchen entryway, arms crossed.

"Fuck off," he slurred.

"Clever." Contrary to his demands, Mairead came closer, and took the seat opposite him. She also had the gall to help herself to some of his stolen whiskey. "Dad know you're siphoning his whiskey?"

"Fuck _off_ ," Arthur complained.

"Come on Gwyn, even I can see this isn't a regular sousing. Nobody gets up in the middle of the night to drink because their head's empty. What's going on with you?"

"Fuck all." Arthur slouched in his chair, leaning his back against the wall rather than the seat back.

"Right, I see." Mairead inhaled a first glass and poured herself another. "You're waiting for the keen listening ears of dad or Angus." Arthur scowled at her, but was startled by the lack of fighting light or harshly teasing glint in her eyes. Something that might have been _concern_ made him look away, and take another drink from his glass.

"Fuck are you doing up anyway?"

"Promised Seamus I'd call after work," she said. "But he was out. Thought I'd try him again before bed."

"S' almost midnight."

"I was reading," she said. She paused. "Couldn't sleep." She clinked her nails against her whiskey glass. "Sometimes seems like we're never going to actually be married, you know? Just playing around like it's going to work out." Light from the one small lamp Arthur had put on lit up the wedding band around her finger. He grunted sympathetically and they were quiet. "So, your turn," she said at last. "Tell me what's going on in that head of yours."

"Don't want to."

"Yeah, but you should."

"Fuck off."

"You'll explode if you try to pack it all away like a Molotov cocktail."

"Works pretty well for you."

"Ah, fuck off. I just told you what I was doing," she said. "Anyway, nobody wants to hear me bitch and moan about my husband." Arthur slouched further in his seat, gripping his glass with white knuckles. The words were just on the edges of his lips, burning and pressing against his mouth.

"I'm just fucked Mairead, okay? I'm just fucked, and I know it."

"Yeah? Why's that?" Arthur groaned loudly and ran a hand back through his hair.

"Can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Just can't."

"I used to carry you home on my back from school when you got in fights and you can't tell me?" she said. "Would've done better to get myself a dog, like I said to mam."

"It's not that simple!" Arthur shouted, slamming his glass down against the table, sloshing whiskey over his hand. "Fuck!" Mairead sighed and passed him a napkin.

"Gwydion—Arthur—look, if you killed a man, just out with it. Whatever you did I'm sure it's not as bad as you think it is."

"Yeah?" Arthur asked poisonously, drawing the word out and squinting over at her in a rage. "You think so? You know why I stayed so long in Paris? I was busy getting buggered by a hot Frenchman. And _still_ I have to stop myself from going back to him."

Mairead blinked at him.

"You're—?"

"Yes, I'm a fucking queer," he snarled, knocking back the rest of his whiskey in one go before grabbing the bottle and chugging a good portion from that too. "Jesus Christ, I told you I couldn't say anything."

"Well then." Again the _chink chink chink_ of her nails against the glass, and no words. Arthur's gut burned like a fire in his body, and he fought the urge to hurl the bottle against the wall. "I mean, you didn't kill anyone, then?"

"No," he replied dully, simmering with fury in his seat. Directed at whom, or what, he couldn't say.

"Well then."

"Oh, fuck off! Go confess to a priest if you need to cleanse your soul after hearing about my transgressions."

"I haven't said a thing!"

"You don't have to!" Mairead sighed heavily while Arthur poured himself more whiskey.

"I mean, it's not ideal."

"You're telling me?"

"Are you sure?"

"Am I _sure_?"

"Okay, okay, it was a stupid question."

"No shit."

More silence, and Arthur groaned again, bumping his head back against the wall.

"Fuck, Mairead. No matter what I do, I'm buggered. If I stay here, I'll have to marry some girl and pretend I'm something I'm not for the rest of my life. If I go back, I can't keep lying, and whether it's legal or not, you know people will be ugly. And I don't…" He hung his head, drawing his feet up onto the chair. "I don't know if I want to accept that kind of life. And don't fucking tell me I'm going to hell," he added, lifting his head.

"I wasn't going to," she said, throwing her hands up. She rubbed her chin and frowned. "Do you…do you love this man?"

"I don't know," he replied in a pained voice, tipping his head back again. "Fuck. Just tell me if you're disgusted, don't pretend."

"I mean, I didn't see it coming," she admitted. "But…"

"But?"

"Well…it just seems to me there are worse things you could do than be in love with a man," she said. Arthur sat up straighter, and put his feet back on the floor.

"But what about the Church?" Mairead tilted her head from side to side.

"I know what they say. But like I said…I mean, you're not _hurting_ anyone." Arthur just stared. "It used to be illegal to be a Protestant," she pointed out in the silence.

"Yeah…"

"So…" She shifted in her seat, looking down at her drink. "Maybe we don't always get things right the first time."

"So you don't…"

"You're still my little brother," she said, lifting her head to look at him. Her eyes were green, like his, but a darker, more intense hue. "I don't know what I think just yet, but I'm sure as fuck not going to kick you to the street about it."

"No?" Arthur's voice cracked, and a great tremor went through him.

"Just seems like we have bigger concerns than whether or not you want to marry a broad." Then Arthur was rubbing at his eyes and not saying anything, and Mairead helped herself to the whiskey bottle. "So then, we're back to the question of whether or not you mean to stay in London." Arthur sniffled, and reached for his whiskey glass.

"I haven't decided."

"Well you left for a reason," she said. "You think you've solved that issue?" Arthur looked down into his glass with a small shake of his head. "Because—well, you know how I felt. About Seamus." Arthur hadn't been there for Mairead's wartime wedding, and he'd never really thought much about it before. But he supposed marrying someone who was probably about to go off and die required some kind of steel. And love.

"So what? You think I should go back?"

"I think you should do what you want," she said. "Don't wait until you're forty to realize you knew what you wanted all along." Arthur heaved a sigh, and looked over.

"Shit. We're out of whiskey."

"Who's 'we'? I was never here," Mairead said, finishing her glass and setting it down. "But dad might give you a good bollocking when he finds you've drunk all his whiskey."

"Hey! You did too!" Mairead smirked and shrugged as she got to her feet, carefully rising and drying her whiskey glass to put it back on the shelf. "Bring it here," she said, reaching her hand back without turning, curling and uncurling her fingers. After a puzzled pause, Arthur staggered to his feet and passed her his glass to be cleaned. He hovered nearby while she did it, and when she turned to go, presumably to bed, he caught her in a clumsy hug. Mairead hesitated, surprised, but then gave him a loose embrace in return. Arthur was just a bit taller, but could rest his forehead on her shoulder still, and he did.

"You get to bed, Gwyn," she said, patting his back and peeling him off her. "You're fucking plastered."

"Don't tell mummy," he pleaded.

"Hm, we'll see," she said. "I might need something from you in the next few days."

"Mairead!" She laughed quietly.

"Get to _bed_ , you twit. It's almost one. And you're going to wake everyone up." Arthur at last obeyed, and stumbled upstairs to his room, collapsing on the bed. He fought to pull the covers out from under himself for a few minutes before he gave up and just grabbed his pillow. He felt warm from head to toe as he closed his eyes, but it wasn't the whiskey, despite the considerable amount he had put away. No, it was the two thoughts that chased each other 'round and 'round in his head until he fell asleep:

 _Mairead still loves me_ and _I'm going back to Paris._


End file.
